


Whisper Of Green

by NishkaGray



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Eventual Sex, Hurt Derek, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Major Character Injury, Minor Allison Argent/Lydia Martin, Minor Character Death, Original Universe, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Out of Character, Past Abuse, Past Derek Hale/Paige, Past Lydia Martin/Jackson Whittemore, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Slow Build, Weird Plot Shit, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-05 08:24:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5368355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NishkaGray/pseuds/NishkaGray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world ends but it never truly does. From ashes of one always comes another, and each new world is a skeleton of the old, on which life grows all the same. Sometimes it’s pure and clean, a phoenix rising from the fire, more beautiful than the one before it. Sometimes it’s a dried husk, rot and mold, a disease that survives even the fiercest flames. But the human soul is eternal, spun out through the wheel of time again and again, bruised and battered by the flesh it wears, by the lives untold.</p><p>And sometimes, two will choose to cling together. Tossed around by the winds of change, they will keep finding each other in the marrow of the world, in the burnt husk of the familiar.</p><p>“love is what moves the world, I’ve always thought … it is the only thing which allows men and women to stand in a world where gravity always seems to want to pull them down … bring them low … and make them crawl”<br/>― Stephen King, The Stand</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer:  
> You may not copy, reproduce, distribute, publish, display, perform, modify, create derivative works, transmit, or in any way exploit any of my content, nor may you distribute any part of this content over any network, including a local area network, sell or offer it for sale, or use such content to construct any kind of database.
> 
> Furthermore, the first installment of this giant beast of a series has been copyrighted © 2015 Charlie Gray (yes, that is my pen name) with different character names so it's legally protected (I'm looking at you Amazon fanfic stealers, fuck off).
> 
> If you're planning to ask me what the hell is the matter with me and this fic, I'm about to tell you right here.
> 
> I have no fucking idea.
> 
> Soundtrack leading through the entire first part of the Series available on [8tracks](http://8tracks.com/nishkaflower/whisper-of-green-soundtrack).

He rode into the Ring with the sun setting behind him. It had been years since he’d needed a pass but he still expected to be stopped. And he was. He shook hands with the man stationed just outside the inner circle of the barb wire fence. He couldn’t remember the man’s name but it didn’t matter. What mattered was a small bottle of clear fluid he handed over, tightly sealed and unmarked. He was asked no questions.

The streets were still busy in the late afternoon. The children ran over the hot clay and rocks, their skinny frames tightly wrapped from head to toe, only their small stature and wide, hungry eyes giving them away. He grimaced watching them try and keep up with his bike; most of the time he’d be carrying a little something on the side, some sugar or a piece of chocolate, maybe a random toy left over from the Old World. This time he’d been forced to abandon it all at his last stop. It was a relief when they lagged far behind him.

There had been a fire near the town center recently; two houses had burned down. He saw their skeletons rearing before he reached the Main Hall itself, but he’d smelt the urine long before that, a thick and eye watering stench of ammonia.

The Main Hall had been a hotel back when such things existed. Gerard had laid claim to it as soon as he took the town. There had been better, more luxurious accommodations still standing, but Derek always thought the hotel was more practical. After all, the ‘great leader’ did prefer having all his boys under one roof.

The ground in front of the entrance was lined in crumbling red brick, not meant for parking. Paying it no mind, he stopped only a few feet away from the armed guards, and the rifles never swung in his direction. It meant he was still welcome here, despite being gone for months this time around.

The dusty wind kicked up for a few moments, bringing with it the smell of rotting meat, blood and unwashed skin. He shouldered the saddle bags and yanked on the rope secured around his wrist. His passenger, a half-naked woman whose blistering sunburn was almost too painful to look at, stumbled off the motorcycle and kept herself upright with no small effort. She knew that if she fell, he wouldn’t stop. He would drag her over the ground until she got to her feet or broke her damn neck. She’d learned that lesson early on.

Even though the guards made no move in his direction, he stopped at the entrance.  
“Mr. Argent occupied?”  
The man to the left snickered into the bandana tied around his mouth.  
The man to the right removed his, and pushed his sunglasses up,  
“Long time no see. We were starting to think you were dead.”  
Derek grinned, finally recognizing the scruffy face. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag, casually tossing it to the man.  
“Cori Seed. For Sarah’s head pains. Best I can do.”  
The man nodded and tucked the bag away,  
“Jayne’ll wanna feed you. You sticking around for a while?”  
“A day or two. I’ll come by if I can.”  
The man pulled his sunglasses back down,  
“Boss is playing with a new toy. He’ll be glad to see you though. Go on in.”

The hotel lobby was a welcome change from the suffocating heat and sun. Derek removed his glasses and bandana, enjoying the cool air on his skin.

It stank of blood and sweat here too. Not death; at least not yet. An old butcher table sat in the middle of the lobby, sort of a center piece of Gerard’s hall of amusement. A boy was strapped down tightly on its surface, hands and feet tied to the sturdy legs. At the moment, the boy was silent, his cheek pressed against the wood. To the left, Kate sat in an armchair with a bottle in one hand and a horse whip resting across her knees. She inclined her head in Derek’s direction, and Derek returned the greeting with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

To the right, Gerard had already abandoned his table. He had on one of his trademark welcoming smiles, which meant that he was in a remarkably good mood, and that he probably needed something from Derek. Judging by the width of the smile, he needed it pretty badly.

“Derek, my boy! Where’ve you been?”

He’d gained weight. When thousands died from hunger, the power resided with a man who managed to grow fat. His hair was beginning to thin too and it looked like he’d gone through some pains to hide it.

“Here and there,” Derek smiled back, clasping the man’s sweaty hand, “Had to make sure I made the visit worth your while. Mind if I unload this on one of your hooks?”  
“Of course not, stick it anywhere. Come join me for a drink.”

A row of meat hooks lined the right wall. Blood had congealed underneath some of them but at least no parts were left behind to rot.

Derek took the rope off his wrist and secured it on a hook, giving the woman enough slack to be able to sit down. She collapsed with a grateful sob, pressing herself against the marble. Her feet had left bloody footprints across the floor, a bizarre map-like pattern.

Behind him came the sound of the whip striking flesh. Even though he should’ve expected it, he still found himself grinding his teeth when the boy cried out.

He joined Gerard on the nearby couch and accepted a glass of amber liquid. It burned its way down his throat as the whip struck flesh again and the boy shrieked. It was the benefit of the marble walls and high ceilings. Even the smallest sounds were amplified; the shriek echoed and bounced back, grinding inside Derek’s skull.

“Loud in here,” he commented, swirling the liquid around,  
“This is decent scotch. I know a man who would sell his right arm for this.”  
“And what use would I have for an arm? Kate, give it a fucking break! I’m doing business here.”  
“Sorry,” she said, sounding amused.  
“Don’t be sorry, just use your head.”  
The kid on the table whimpered quietly, his face turned away.

Gerard stretched out, propping his boots up on the table,  
“My new toy. Well, Kate’s toy I suppose. Screams like a girl. ”  
Derek studied the bloody back, the ropes digging into wrists and ankles,  
“Who is he?”  
“No one. His old man was a rebel.”  
Derek nodded, sure his face showed the right amount of indifference. Last time it had been a kid too, barely old enough to shave. Long gone now, probably buried somewhere in the desert with no marker or a stone, or burned on a bonfire like all the rest. He drained the glass and waved off an offer of more. He was here on business; the quicker it was done, the better.

He pulled a plastic bag out of his backpack and placed it on the table,  
“Sleepers, 2mg. Thirty.”  
A tall bottle of liquid joined the pills,  
“Morphine, 12omL. The good stuff.”

Rowdy laughter drifted down from the stairwell and the bottle of Morphine disappeared into Gerard’s pocket. Three men stomped into the lobby.

One of them caught the sight of Derek and whooped,  
“Derek, you shithead! Did you just get in?”  
Grinning, Derek stood up and gave the man a hug,  
“Ten minutes ago. How’s everything? How’s Anna?”  
“Oh fuck that bitch! She fucking left me for some douchebag who rode through here a month ago. Next time I see them, I’m gonna skin them both.”

“Chad, give us a minute here,” Gerard said softly.  
“Sure thing, boss. Derek, stick around for a while, huh? Let’s get drunk for old times’ sake.”  
“You got it.”

When Derek sat back down, a dirty zip lock bag rested next to his empty glass. He picked it up, studied it for a moment and put it back down.  
“There’s only twenty here.”  
“I know,” Gerard rubbed his cheek, “It’s all I’ve got. If you come back in a week I’ll have more.”  
“I can’t come back in a week, you know that. I’m supposed to be in the First Ring. This,” he nudged the bag with his fingers, “this isn’t gonna cut it.”

Gerard looked away. Chad had joined his buddies at the butcher table and they traded Kate’s bottle over the bloodied back as if it was a late lunch. One man that Derek didn’t recognize casually upended the last bit over ravaged skin. A piercing scream echoed the marble walls.

“Jesus fucking Christ!!” Gerard slammed his glass down, “I’m fucking doing shit here! Get out! Get!”  
The man backed away from the table, actually looking sheepish.  
“What can I give you?” Gerard went on quietly, as if nothing had happened, “You know I need this. Gavin broke his leg two weeks ago and I’ve got men lining up with everything from headaches to fucking tumors. I need this.”

Derek didn’t meet his eyes; if the man thought that the mention of Gavin was gonna soften him up he was barking up a wrong tree. Pity was bad for business. And he had none to spare for Gerard’s youngest brat.

The boy strapped to the table turned his head and Derek could finally see his face. Patchy facial hair, a smattering of tiny moles across the left cheek, lips bruised and swollen. Brown eyes glazed over, seeing nothing, cheeks damp with tears. He was young, probably not even twenty yet. Kate had made sure to leave his face unmarked. Most of his face anyway. They had definitely used his mouth just like they’d used the rest of him.

He was pretty. And he was gonna die. Not today or probably not even a month from now, but eventually Kate and her boys would get bored. By then, the kid would look nothing like this. By then, he probably wouldn’t even look human.

His mind flashed to the stifling room filled with flies. The sickly sweet stench of flesh rotting in the heat. A tuft of blonde hair and a milky white eye.

He spoke without thinking,  
“I’ll take him.”

Gerard blinked in surprise then looked over at the kid strapped to the table. Derek wanted to kick himself.

Stupid. That was stupid.

Gerard shook his head,  
“I don’t think so.”  
“Take her too,” Derek motioned to the woman, “I need a place to dump her anyway.”  
“She looks like a skinned cat. I’d take her for free. Maybe.”

The empty glaze in the kid’s eyes was making the hair on the back of Derek’s neck stand up. He should back away, right now. Just shrug and give up.

Instead, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a patch protected in a plastic see-through sheet.  
“The patch, and the Morphine, and the Sleepers for him. I’ll take the twenty you’ve got here. You can keep the girl.”

Gerard stared at him for a full minute without speaking. Then he took the patch and carefully tucked it away.  
“Kate, untie the kid. He’ll be going with Derek.”

To her credit, Kate didn’t even hesitate. As far as Derek knew, neither one of them had never given up one of their toys, not until they were done playing with them.

Derek decided that he could use another drink now.  
“How did Gavin break his leg?”

Gerard leaned back and propped his feet up again. He looked perfectly at ease, yet something in his eyes hinted at an ill-natured child that still hasn’t learned that it can’t have everything. Derek didn’t want to be the person who taught him that lesson. He’d rather have a rattlesnake stuffed down his pants. But he was doing it, wasn’t he? Derek just took something from the most dangerous man in the Third Ring.

He needed a large drink. Maybe two.

“He went out with the boys to that flyspeck shit heap behind the old power plant. Wanted to see the place where they used to make nuclear weapons. The kid’s too curious for his age.”  
“They let him climb?”  
Anyone who let a fifteen year old kid climb those towers was a fucking idiot. Even if the kid was an infuriating little shit like Gavin.  
“No,” Gerard snorted, “they know better than that.”  
He topped off both their drinks,  
“But they did decide to take care of business while they were there. Crazy guy, talking shit, trying to turn the village against the Ring. Telling people we murder children and hoard food. Should have been a two second job, put a bullet in his skull and move on. But the guy had a kid.”

Gerard tipped his glass in the direction his former toy. Derek’s stomach turned cold.  
“Came out of nowhere when the boys were taking off. Cracked Jeremy’s ribs with a steel pipe and took Kate right off her bike. Unfortunately for him, Gavin was riding double with Kate. The fall broke his leg in two places. That’s when the boys decided to bring him back here to me. So I can teach him a lesson.”

Derek glanced at the kid who now knelt on the ground, hands tied behind him, head bowed. A boy who thought he could take out half a dozen enforcers with a steel pipe. It was a wonder he was still alive.

“I see you didn’t break anything,” he said lightly.  
Gerard drained his glass in two gulps,  
“No. We were just getting started.”

It was time to go. Now. Before he did or said something else that could get him killed.

He finished his scotch and shook his head at Gerard’s offer of more.  
“I’m gonna head out. See if Mickey has a bed.”  
“I’m sure she does,” Gerard said amiably.  
“We’ll meet for a drink again before I leave town?”  
“Count on it.”

Derek shouldered his backpack and went to take charge of his new toy. Kate handed him the end of the rope and Derek looped it around his wrist. The kid was still on his knees. He didn’t move or look up, but he shivered all over like a rabbit in a trap.

Idiot. Brainless fucking idiot.

Derek yanked on the rope with force,  
“Up!”  
The kid let out a small sound as the rope slid across his already raw wrists but he got to his feet on the second try. The floor underneath him was spattered in blood.

As he was walking away with the boy stumbling behind him, he could hear Gerard tell Kate to tie the woman to the table. The woman began to shriek. There was a soft thud and the shrieks cut off. Derek vaguely wondered if she would be dead by the nightfall.

\--

He rode the motorcycle slowly through the dusty streets. Even so, the kid tied to the bike was having a hard time keeping up. He ran behind Derek hunched over, the dusty wind whipping at him with force.

People recognized him despite the bandana tightly wrapped around his face. Ordinarily he would’ve stopped on his way to Mickey’s and spoken to at least half a dozen of them. No matter what Gerard believed, Derek wasn’t here just to trade with him. At least half the Ring owed Derek a favor, and there were even a few that owed him their lives. He was well known here, and respected. He’d rarely cashed in on the favors he’d done over the years; he hadn’t needed to. If he were the type of man who wanted power, this would’ve been a place to gain it. Another couple of years at most, and he could unseat Gerard with nothing more than a few words spoken in the right ears.

The Ring had grown larger. It grew larger each time he stopped there, people drifting to the populated areas like moths to a flame. They willingly traded the freedom of the open spaces for half-demolished houses and fences. The miles of nothingness to be at the mercy of the enforcers. There was uncertainty out there, in the desert. A man never knew where his next meal would come from, or when he would get a chance to rest. But the Ring could be just as dangerous, as the kid stumbling behind him proved. Derek didn’t understand it, this compulsion to huddle together in small spaces. He didn’t understand what possible comfort could be drawn from it. But then again, he’d always preferred the solitude. His little Ali would’ve had a perfectly good explanation for this. She would have called him the unnatural one, and she was probably right.

Derek had no interest in sociology. All that crap went right over his head.

Maybe he didn’t have much basis for comparison, but to him, the Rings were a damn good example of everything that was wrong with humanity. Three separate sprawling towns, each with a single dictator on the very top of the food chain. Similar in structure even though the three so-called rulers were very much different. Kali would never shake his hand or invite him to sit down and share a drink. It took years before he’d even been allowed to meet the woman in person. Gerard might be cruel in his own way, but he was also a politician. He believed in morale, in presenting the best possible face to the public. Deep down inside, Gerard wanted to be loved. Kali wanted to be feared.

Derek kept his time in the First Ring at a minimum. Kali’s method of dealing with law breakers made Gerard look like a saint. Deucalion on the other hand, ran the Second Ring like a very profitable business. Cold, calculating, and passionless. He wasted no time with torture or public image or mind games. He didn’t care if he was loved or feared as long as he was obeyed. Out of the three, Derek had only ever been afraid of him. If he had a weakness, Derek had yet to find it.

He parked his bike outside a mansion which had once, long ago, belonged to some rich politician. He knew this because he’d been the one who helped Mickey move in. She’d gotten herself a new sign too, the paint green and merry next to the scraped up pillars of the entrance. He wasn’t surprised to see her waiting in the doorway. There was very little happening in the Ring that Mickey didn’t know about.

She came down the steps and hugged him tightly, pressing a dry kiss on his cheek.  
“Hello doll,” he smiled down at her, “It looks like the business has improved.”  
She’d aged while he was gone. The deep scar running across her nose and cheek had grown more pronounced, and the gray in her hair was staring to overtake the black.  
“Thanks to you I’ve got my own supplier now. Gerard comes to me for booze and his boys keep the order. He got me the sign too. You like?”  
“Real nice Mickey. Professional, you know? I hope you got an empty room in there for me.”  
“If I didn’t, I’d kick someone out.”  
She waited while he grabbed his saddle bags, then nodded towards the other man,  
“That coming with you? I’ve got a barn out back for the like. I even feed them once a day and hose them down.”  
“That help the business?”  
“The boss’s outriders love it. They’re always dragging some piece of flesh behind them. You know how the boys are.”  
Ignoring the fact that Gerard had now become ‘the boss,’ Derek nodded,  
“I do. But I’ll take this one with me. If you gotta room big enough.”  
“Anything for you.”

He bent down and placed a kiss on her forehead, tucking a small bag into the pocket of her dress at the same time.  
She tapped it with her hand and said nothing.

The inside was shady and calm. Derek knew that the drunken crowd would emerge when the sun went down, but for now, the low murmur from the half-empty tables was almost soothing after the silence of the desert. The polished bar shone in the gloom, the bottles glittering behind it.

It was an impressive sight. He’d left Mickey operating out of a dirty basement of the same mansion with gallons of unidentified booze stacked to the ceiling. She’d come far since then.

The girl behind the bar smiled at him and blushed to the roots of her hair.  
“You remember my Mary?” Mickey nudged him.

Derek looked at the girl again, and sure enough, it was the same Mary who was running around with skinned knees last time he was in town. Had it really been that long?

“She’s grown up. Is it smart having her work here?”  
Mickey snorted, leading the way to the back of the bar,  
“Safer then anywhere else. We’ve got Gerard’s protection. Anyone touches her, they’d lose their fingers.”  
‘Anyone other than Gerard himself,’ Derek thought, then bit his lip.

Where had that come from? It was none of his business.

He followed Mickey’s large backside up the stairs, dragging the kid behind him and ignoring his labored breathing. On the third floor, Mickey unlocked a set of double doors and swung them open. Heavy curtains covered the windows, saving the room from the unforgiving heat. A king sized bed had actual sheets and blankets on it. A door to the right opened up into a bathroom where the tub could easily admit three people. Even the traditional hook on the far left wall was clean.

He turned to Mickey and gave her another kiss,  
“It’s wonderful. Have I mentioned how much I love you?”  
She pinched his cheek,  
“Rascal. I’ll send Mary up here with some food. I’ve got some clothes to fit you too; I’ve been saving them in case you came back.”  
“I’ll always come back to you.”  
“You remember that. Don’t wait months to visit again.”  
“Cross my heart.”

He didn’t bother closing the door after she left. He tied the boy to the hook on the wall, leaving him no slack. The kid made no attempt to meet his eyes and Derek found himself grateful for it. He dumped the bags and his backpack on the floor, shrugged out of his jacket, and took off the shoulder holster. The guns were overdue for cleaning but that would have to wait.

He was running the faintly muddy water into the tub when Mary brought up a covered tray. It smelled like heaven; for months now he’d been getting by on freeze dried meals and salted beef of questionable origins. Rice, steaming bread, and a grilled hunk of some kind of meat was looking like an actual feast. Derek had learned a long time ago not to ask what sort of meat Mickey served in a town full of stray and sickly dogs.

Blushing furiously, Mary placed the tray on the table and a pile of neatly folded clothes on the nearby chair. She scurried out without a word. He closed the door behind her and dug through his saddle bags until he found a rough rubber wedge he hadn’t had to use since the last time he was in the Rings. He wedged the door tightly. All the rooms had locks but only on the outside. Derek supposed that said quite a bit about the way things were done around here; locks to keep people in instead of keeping them out.

He’d also learned not to wonder what kind of water Mickey was running through her pipes. It was enough to know that everyone who could pay bathed in it, and anyone had yet to die from it. But he did wonder how in seven hells she managed pay for a cistern just to get something so frivolous as hot water in the middle of a desert.

He wished her new-found prosperity didn’t have Gerard’s fingerprints all over it.

Once upon a time Mickey had been a rebel. When Derek had met her for the first time, Mary had been chubby five year old who wanted to sit on his knee and play with his beard. And Mickey had been hiding girls in her basement, finding ways to get them out of the Ring and away from Gerard’s ‘boys’. Breaking the laws. Putting her life on the line. Now Gerard was ‘the boss’ and her profits were coming from those same enforcers she’d once hated. On one hand, Mickey had always been a practical creature, and she was old enough now for reason to replace passion. Losing Wes a few years back had changed her a great deal too, as if the best part of her had died with him. But watching such a complete change happen, especially with someone he thought he knew well, was more than a little disturbing.

The kid flinched when Derek took the rope off the hook. He made no resistance at all as Derek led him into the bathroom. The ropes had dug into his skin leaving deep furrows on his wrists, ankles and neck. Derek removed them, not bothering to hide his distaste.

“Get in the tub.”

The boy hesitated. His head was still bent, the muscles in his back tense.

Derek waited patiently. Having to manhandle someone into a tub and wash them by force was not his idea of a good time. Thankfully, after a few moments, the kid cautiously stepped in and lowered himself into the warm water.

Grabbing a washcloth and a rough sliver of soap, Derek passed it to him,  
“Wash.”  
He obeyed.

Soon the water was a murky maroon color, a mix of filth and blood. Derek washed up at the sink, swapping his sweaty tee shirt for the one Mary left behind. He resisted the urge to stick his head under the tap. Any more than a cursory scrub down was a waste of time and effort. It was nearly impossible to keep the dust out of any bodily crevice; it had become a fact of life. He’d left the last settlement two days ago and had been forced to take shelter from four dust storms so far. He would be back on the road in a day or two anyway.

When he was done, he grabbed a towel and passed it to the kid,  
“Out. Dry off.”

With the dirt and the blood gone, Derek could actually see all the damage. Some of the cuts were too deep to have come from the whipping. Chances were, Kate had decided to play with blades again. Filthy blades; she’d never been much for cleanliness. At least two of them were infected. The whip marks on his back crisscrossed older ones, so many of them that very little flesh in between lay unmarked. Only some of them were bleeding; Derek supposed Kate must have just been getting started on today’s share of torture. Bruises in various arrangement of colors decorated most of the boy’s skin. The furrows around his wrists and ankles were red and raw, pebbling with blood already and leaving streaks on the towel. He shook like a leaf while trying to dry off. It probably burned like hell.

But behind all the bruises and cuts, Derek could definitely see the appeal. Wide shoulders, small waist, just the right amount of muscle. Clearly underfed, but still attractive. Miles of tiny moles and freckles, like constellations. Brown hair, tips made light by the sun. Thick, dark eyelashes, and eyebrows arching like wings. Lovely mouth. It quivered as Derek watched it, startling him out of thoughts he hadn’t realized he was having. He snatched the towel out of the kid’s hands, irritated with himself.  
“Out.”

Without prompting, the boy went back to the wall. Head bent under the hook, hands crossed in front of him, trying to hide those parts which Derek had already seen.

Derek paused at the door. The kid seemed to be trying to make himself look smaller. What was he thinking? He’d passed within a foot of the handguns without even a glance in their direction. In his place, Derek would have grabbed a gun and taken his chances.

His hipbones looked sharp enough to cut glass. Everywhere, skin was stretched tight over muscle and bone. Not just underfed but hungry; a physique of a someone who’d been running on minimal nourishment for months. There was something fragile and helpless about the lines of his collar bones, the tension of his jaw and shoulders. Something disturbingly enticing. It would be so easy. No one would think it was wrong; Derek wouldn’t hurt him. He only inflicted pain when it was necessary. He wasn’t a fucking monster.

Ali’s face floated up from his memory, the well known expression of pity and disapproval etched in her sweet features. His fingers tightened on the door frame.

He was losing his balance already. This would go horribly wrong for him. He knew that. He’d known it the moment he’d pulled that patch out of his backpack.

His breath caught when the boy slowly sunk to his knees, making himself even smaller. It looked like a gesture of submission. He knew exactly what he was doing by putting his mouth at the same level as Derek’s cock. He was hoping to get through whatever was coming in the least painful way.

It was pitiful.

It was tempting and sickening at the same time. Tempting because that mouth was pure fucking sin. Kate never damaged their faces, she always left them intact. She wanted to watch them cringe in pain; she wanted them to see, and hear, and be afraid. She wanted them to be able to beg with their last breath. It was sickening because Derek could see why this one was different, why the need to hear him beg had gotten overwhelmed by the need to see that mouth doing every filthy thing it was capable of. Just imagining those lips wrapped around his cock tied his stomach in knots.

If Derek did this thing, he would never be able to live with it. He had a feeling that this one would scar him down to his bones.

He picked up the tray from the table and set it on the floor,  
“Eat.”  
The brown eyes finally lifted to meet his. They were cautious on the surface but there was a wildness hiding in the depths, a trembling despair bordering on insanity.

“What’s your name?” Derek heard himself ask.  
“Stiles,” the kid croaked, then looked surprised at his own response.  
A ridiculous name and probably not even real.

Derek nudged the tray closer,  
“Eat.”

The boy hesitated. Derek wondered if he’d been fed at all for the last two weeks. He wouldn’t put it past Kate to just ‘forget’ to feed Gerard’s toys. After a few seconds, Stiles reached cautiously for a hunk of bread. When it seemed clear that Derek would not try to stop him, he attacked the food with vigor.

While he ate, Derek unpacked some supplies, then transferred the rest of the patches and Morphine into a lock box. He took out the bag Gerard had handed over and sniffed it. Gathered up the white dust at the bottom and tested it with his tongue. Semisynthetic cephalosporin antibiotic, the good stuff. He added the bag to the pile. Then he paused, debated with himself, and finally tucked another patch away in the pocket of his backpack. He couldn’t spare another one, but he’d thrown all the rules out of the window already. His plans didn’t matter any more; from now on, he’d be threading in the dark. He tucked the lock box back into his saddle bags and hung the key around his neck. It had always felt safe there, against his chest. Except that it was only safe as long as his head was attached to his shoulders.

By then Stiles had cleaned the tray, leaving only a few crumbs.  
“Up,” Derek said brusquely, wishing he’d thought to eat himself before it was all gone.  
“On the bed. On your stomach.”

A shudder ran through the kid. He stood up slowly, his fists clenching again. An expression flickered across his face, a mix of despair and resignation gone so quickly it might have been a figment of Derek’s imagination. Eyes downcast he approached the bed and crawled on top of it. His hands latched onto the bed frame as he stretched out, the fingers already turning white. He was breathing heavily again, all of his muscles tense, his face turned away.

He gasped when Derek’s fingers started spreading salve across his back.  
“Antibiotic,” Derek said.

The kid said nothing. He remained completely still as the salve went on his back, his legs, wrists and the back of his neck. Derek rubbed it around his ankles and on soles of his feet, where it looked like the whip had split the flesh only days ago. He wondered if the kid had tried to run, or if Kate had just decided to whip the soles of his feet for fun.

He paused, cleaned his hands with a towel and took a deep breath,  
“Don’t move. This’ll feel cold.”  
Other than the shaking of his shoulders, Stiles stayed still. Derek didn’t ask for a permission before carefully sliding his fingers in between the boy’s cheeks.  
Stiles jerked violently and Derek pressed one hand against the small of his back,  
“I’m not trying to hurt you, ok? Just relax.”

It was pointless. He had to physically hold him down with one hand in order to find his way with the other. It made him wonder how many torture sessions had started with an empty promise of no pain. He did the best he could; there was some tearing but not nearly as much as he feared.

He hoped what he managed to apply was enough and wiped his hands again, grimacing at the fresh blood staining his fingers,  
“Turn over.”

Ignoring the boy’s face, Derek spread the rest of the salve over the cuts on the his chest and stomach, on the insides of his thighs. Pity was bad for business. He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. And just what the fuck was he doing here?

He didn’t know.

“Are you allergic to Penicillin?”  
Stiles shook his head.  
Penicillin was not nearly as precious as cephalosporin. He felt no guilt digging one of them up from his trade stash and passing it to him, along with two crude pills.  
“For pain,” he explained even though the kid didn’t ask.  
When Derek passed him a water bottle from the backpack, Stiles took the pills without a moment of hesitation.

“Good,” Derek grunted, “Lie down. Get some sleep.”  
He stretched out cautiously, as if unsure what was expected of him. Derek made it easier by grabbing a folded up sheet and spreading it over him.  
“Sleep,” he ordered again and the kid immediately closed his eyes.

He didn’t fall asleep right away, flinching slightly every time Derek moved around the room as if expecting the worst at any moment. Eventually his breathing deepened and evened out. Chances were, it would be the coma-like sleep of utter exhaustion. Derek doubted he’d been allowed to sleep very often. Still, he made sure to remove everything that Stiles might use to harm himself or others. He used his own padlock on the outside of the door and hoped the kid would not be stupid enough to try and break out. He wouldn’t make it half-way down the stairs without getting caught. Worse, Derek would be forced to punish him for it. He’d prefer to not have to do that.

The main room was loud and smoky but Gerard’s boys were easy to spot. They had the largest table, the best booze, and there was an empty space around their chairs. Derek knew that some of that space was due to fear. Gerard was the law and his boys were the enforcers of the law. He had to remind himself that aside from fear, there was also a great deal of respect. Gerard might have peculiar tastes for entertainment, but he was still the man who fed and protected an entire town. If that protection entitled him and his boys to some odd perks, no one seemed to mind.

Derek didn’t mind. He couldn’t afford to. Out of all the Ring rulers, Gerard was probably the best liked and had the smallest overall body count. There was a reason that Third Ring was the largest. There was a reason Derek had actually made friends here, as opposed to the other places he passed through.

Still, the fury he felt upon recognizing the man who was the last to hurt Stiles came unexpectedly, stopping him in his tracks. His hand drifted to his gun on its own. Like a talisman, Ali’s face flashed in front of him again.

“Derek!”  
Chad was standing and waving him over,  
“Hey, get your ass over here! I’ve got a bottle with your name on it!”

\--

Two hours later, the bottle Chad had pushed into his hand was mostly empty. They had exhausted all the news from the Third Ring and the surrounding villages. Chad bitched and moaned about Anne, complained about the dust, the tumors, the sun, then circled right back to Anne. Derek couldn’t help but notice how his eyes seemed to linger on Mary. Chad was a good guy, as much as any of the Gerard’s enforcers could be; Mary could do much worse in a town like this. Still, she was young and Chad was reckless. Chances were, anything between them would end with Chad’s balls nailed up on Mickey’s wall.

The whole thing would have been endlessly amusing if Derek didn’t feel like he was skating on a razor’s edge. If every smile didn’t feel false on his face. He’d drank and eaten with murderers and rapists for years now without blinking an eye. Why did his skin prickle every time he looked at the man who’d hurt Stiles so casually? In essence, they were the same, weren’t they? Derek had almost done it too; he’d thought about it, had gone as far as to picture it. Why was everything suddenly crumbling?

When the place started emptying out, he shook hands with the boys and escaped back upstairs. For the first time in years, the line between the truth and the lies was becoming dangerously blurry. Everywhere he looked he could see Ali’s face. Only when the door was tightly wedged and he could see the sleeping mound on the bed, did he allow himself to relax.

What now?

\--

He sat by the window and watched the bonfires burn. He’d slept some; not nearly as much as he would have, had there not been a kid in his bed forcing him to take refuge on the floor. Dawn was only a few hours away, and with it, unpleasant things were coming. Gerard would pay him a visit; Derek could bet his life on it. He could also pretend that many things depended on what was said during that visit but he knew that in the end, it wouldn’t matter. As his father used to say, the shit would hit the fan either way.

Stiles slept curled up into a tight ball at the very edge of the bed. The moonlight threw shadows on his face, long eyelashes trembling slightly over pale cheeks. Derek wanted to blame it all on the kid but that was unfair. He hadn’t asked to be there. Derek had made a split second decision and now they would both suffer the consequences. What’s worse, Ali would pay for it too. Her, and the all the rest. She would never blame him for deciding one way or the other, but he felt guilty nonetheless.

Stiles looked so fucking young. Derek had already lost one, less than a week ago. One he’d planned on saving, had even gone out of his way to do so. But he’d been too late. Because it hadn’t been a priority; because Derek never got to decide what the priorities were. Maybe it was the guilt over that bottle of Morphine, so easily traded when it had been meant for something else. Or maybe he was finally going crazy.

\--

Stiles woke early. Derek could tell that his breathing pattern had changed, that his eyelids fluttered once in a while. He let him pretend until he heard a commotion in front of the house.

“Up. Get up.”  
Stiles twitched violently and Derek bit his tongue. He would have to learn to soften his tone. He’d spent so long playing the game this time around, that he was forgetting how to be himself, how to be normal.

Stiles got off the bed and let his wrists be tied back up without a word. There were streaks of blood on the sheet; Derek didn’t bother covering them up. He hung the rope back on the hook with no slack, leaving the kid facing the wall. Then he removed the wedge from under the door and tucked it away.

When the knock came he was sitting at the table and cleaning his handguns.

“Come in.”

Gerard stepped inside followed by Kate and a third man Derek didn’t know. Kate’s eyes flickered to the bed, then to Stiles. Gerard had a thermos in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other.

“Morning,” he said, sounding disturbingly cheerful.  
“Figured I’d come by and see how you’re getting along. Got coffee and breakfast.”

He set both down on the table and took the chair across from Derek. It was obvious that his two guards would not be leaving. They settled by the window where Derek had spent most of his night. Despite the size of the room, with five people crowded inside, it suddenly became airless. Gerard’s muscle was definitely not here for breakfast. They were here for back up. Which meant that Derek had been right all along, and shit was about to hit the fan.

He smiled easily,  
“Thank you. Haven’t had a decent cup of coffee since the last time I was here.”

Gerard poured out a cupful, broke the bread into a few pieces, and passed a hunk of it to Derek along with the steaming cup. Derek drank deeply. He didn’t have to fake the satisfied sigh; the coffee was excellent, the bread still warm from the oven.

Gerard drank straight from the thermos.  
“How long are you staying?”  
“Till tomorrow. Heading out first thing in the morning. Should be at the First Ring in five days at the most.”  
Gerard nodded and pulled a bag out of his pocket. Dropped it in front of Derek.

Derek’s stomach turned.

Forty pills, just like the ones he’d gotten the day before. Gerard must’ve had them all along.

He stayed perfectly still, afraid of giving himself away,  
“I don’t have anything left.”  
“Not true,” Gerard leaned back in the chair, “You’ve got my toy.”  
Stiles let out a small sound and Gerard smiled,  
“It sounds like he missed us.”

Derek glanced at the bound figure and wished he hadn’t. The kid was shivering again, pressed against the wall as if hoping the wall would swallow him.

He looked back down at the bag,  
“I was hoping to keep him.”  
“I know,” Gerard shrugged, “but I wasn’t quite done with him.”

It wasn’t a negotiation, Derek knew this. He could pull out everything he had and it still wouldn’t be enough. Gerard would take the boy back one way or another.

He picked up the bag, wondering how much did he dare risk, how far would he go.  
“I have a proposition.”  
Gerard’s eyebrows arched slightly,  
“I’m listening.”  
“I’ve got another patch, 50 mcg. It’s my back up. You know, in case I get mauled by a fucking rattlesnake out there.”  
The man just smiled and nodded. He wouldn’t go for it. Derek could tell that already.  
“I’ll hand it over right now if you let me keep him until tomorrow morning.”  
Gerard barked a surprised laugh,  
“You like him!”  
Derek smiled and shrugged, feeling sweat gather on his forehead.

The man drummed his fingers on the table as if thinking about it. Kate seemed to take that as a permission to make her way over to Stiles, and Derek forced himself to breathe calmly. What could he do if they decided to take him back right then and there?

Nothing. He could do nothing.

Kate ruffled Stiles’s hair as if he were a dog. Bile crept up Derek’s throat, yet when she looked back at him, Derek was still smiling. He would keep smiling even if the worst happened.

Gerard sighed,  
“Why not? Pills for the patch. You can keep him until the morning for free. Consider it a gift.”  
Derek swallowed a relieved sigh, ripped off another piece of bread and forced himself to eat it,  
“Good. God knows I don’t wanna fuck anything in the First Ring.”

\--

They drank the coffee. Gerard told Derek all about expanding to the East which Derek only listened to with half an ear. The visit ended soon after he handed over his largest patch. It hurt to give it away. He had others, but that was the only one that would have made a difference between a peaceful death or a painful one.

By the time he shoved the wedge back under the door and went to untie Stiles, a tentative plan was starting to form. An insane plan, definitely, but he’d left himself very few options. All of which were likely to get them both killed.

When Stiles jerked out of his grip the moment the ropes were gone, Derek was too stunned to react. As a result he got a knee to his stomach which knocked his breath out, and when the kid pushed him, he actually went down, taking one of the chairs with him. By the time he wrapped his mind around the fact that the same kid who twitched every time Derek spoke had knocked him to the ground, Stiles had managed to yank the wedge out, and was about to run out of the room, like there was somewhere for him to run to. As if Kate wouldn’t be on top of him before he even hit the stairs.

Derek tackled him. He got an elbow in his face and his mouth filled with blood. Trapping the kid’s arms, he settled his weight on Stiles’s back. The kid growled in fury as he struggled, almost throwing Derek off. It was good to see that he had some backbone left after all, even if it would do him no good. Derek tightened his grip; he outweighed the kid by at least fifty pounds. Eventually, he would tire of struggling and calm down. Instead, Stiles cried out, a sound so pitiful that Derek released him quickly, afraid he’d hurt him.

Free, Stiles didn’t bother trying to reach the door again.

One of his hands shot out and latched on to Derek’s ankle,  
“Kill me-- please, just-- I can’t go back--” he crawled up to his knees, his eyes wild, his hands sliding on Derek’s jeans, “--I’ll do anything you want, anything at all, I’ll give you-- I can make it so good for you, ok? I can, just-- just-- if you won’t I can do it, I can, just lend me your gun for two minutes, you can tell them I took it-- while you were sleeping--an accident, ok? You can tell them it was an accident and no one will ever know-- I’ll do it in the tub, easy clean up, just one bullet, please--all I need is one bullet, it’ll take a few seconds--”

Derek moved back and away from his hands.

Nausea rolled through his stomach again and helpless fury spiked on the heels of it. Fury with Gerard for putting him in this nightmare, himself for what he’d become, even Stiles. Especially for Stiles. He wanted to slap the kid even as he felt sorry for him.

“Stop. Stop you fucking whining. I’m not giving you back and you’re not gonna die. Just shut up.”

Stiles’s mouth snapped shut at the command, but it was a long time before his shudders subsided.

\--

The day dragged. Mickey showed up with lunch and they reminisced for a while, passing a small bottle of moonshine back and forth. She filled him in on the news from the First Ring which would have been helpful if he was actually going there. Chances were he would never be able to show his face in the First Ring again. Or any of them for that matter. Ordinarily he enjoyed drinking with Mickey. This time, he found himself watching Stiles every few minutes, wishing he didn’t have to tie the kid back up.

As soon as the sun went down, Derek packed. Strapped on his guns. Pulled the wedge from under the door and tucked it away.

Stiles knelt on the floor where he’d been since Derek had untied him. He’d eaten the supper Derek had put in front of him without a word. He took the second Penicillin and two more pain pills without a word. The blank look in his eyes was back. It was something Derek couldn’t think about yet. As long as the kid obeyed direction, everything else could be dealt with later. When Derek dropped a pair of pants and a shirt in front of him, he dressed silently and knelt back down.

They waited. Hours passed. The first bonfires were lit.

The crowd in the bar grew rowdy. Derek double checked his guns just to do something. Paced back and forth. Another hour passed. He had no watch but he knew it was past midnight. Soon they could move. In the end it might not matter what time it was; Gerard could have the house watched. If Derek was in his position, he’d have the house watched.

Of course, Gerard had no reason to distrust him. Ten long years Derek had spent making sure that the man trusted him, that he could come and go as he pleased. It had all started with Gerard; the man had been his doorway into the Second and First Ring, into countless seedy little towns. Derek was about to throw it all away in less time than it took to eat a meal.

Pure fucking insanity. This could be the largest mistake of his life.

As if hearing him think, Stiles looked up and Derek’s throat tightened.

Fierce, desperate hope transformed the boy’s features. He shone with it. The sheer magnitude of the trust he displayed just by letting Derek see it was painful.

Derek wasn’t kidding anyone, least of all himself. It had been too late the moment he’d met the kid’s eyes across the hotel lobby. The moment he’d pulled that first patch out of his backpack. He never though himself capable of throwing everything away for one single person other than Ali. If there was a God out there, he must be laughing his ass off.

He knelt in front of Stiles and took one gun out of the holster.  
“Do you know how to use this?”  
Stiles nodded, his gaze locked on the weapon.  
“We’re gonna ride out of this town. Hopefully, no one will even notice. Hopefully, if they do notice, no one will think to stop us. But if they do, and only if they do, take them out. Ok?”

The boy’s eyes widened, flickering up to meet Derek’s only for a moment, the shock in them obvious. He paused for a few seconds before carefully taking the gun.

“If they try and stop us, shoot them,” he whispered tentatively, as if unsure that he’d understood the instructions.  
“Shoot someone for no reason and I’ll kill you myself.”  
“I won’t,” he breathed, “I swear.”  
“Good. Let’s go.”

\--

There was a back stairway to the house. Mickey had shown it to him once, shortly after she’d moved in. It was a service stairway, for the maids and the footmen. This had tickled her to no end. She’d said that he was the only person other than her and Mary that knew about the stairway. ‘It’s our little secret,’ she’d said.

What would she say if she knew he was using it to sneak Gerard’s property out of her house? Would she grab a shotgun and give him a chase?

Probably. She would feel personally responsible if Derek managed to get away. She was a tough old bird. Genuinely fond of him or not, she’d finally learned which side her bread got buttered on, and he could hardly hold it against her. Most of them would side with Gerard. The ones that wouldn’t, Derek didn’t want on his side anyway. He had no use for idiots.

It will be a shame to never see any of them again. He almost wished he’d gone to supper at Jayne’s. One last time before he became the public enemy.

Stiles crept down the stairs behind him, his bare feet making no sound on the steps. One of his hands held on to Derek’s jacket lightly, trusting him to find the way out. They passed panels that concealed doorways into the different halls, faint light drifting through the cracks. Somewhere on the second floor someone sobbed and begged. Heavy thuds echoed, glass shattered. Derek could hear Stiles’s breath speed up at the sound, could feel his fingers clench around the jacket. He wanted to reassure him, and didn’t.

At the bottom of the stairway, a narrow hallway curved to the right. Straight ahead was the back yard and the shed. Derek had moved his motorcycle in there after Gerard had left that morning, and he hoped it was still where he’d left it. They would cross that bridge when they got to it though; first they had to make it to the shed without anyone noticing.

The door creaked softly and the dust snuck its way inside before Derek managed to step out. Just once, he would like to be free of dust. He wished he could remember what the air smelled like in a forest, the feel of damp moss and rich earth. He wished that he could’ve seen it with his own eyes, the world his parents had been born to.

Stiles removed his hand from Derek’s jacket as they stepped into the back yard. The moonlight was weak but after the darkness of the stairway, they could both see clearly. Still, Derek found himself wishing the kid would put his hand back where it was. He wondered if Stiles ever wished for the world the way it used to be before they were born. He was so much younger than Derek. Born and bred on the desert and dust, did he ever wonder about it? Had he seen pictures like Derek had? Heard stories on his father’s knee?

They snuck into the barn. A girl chained to the wall woke with a start and struggled up to her knees. She placed her forehead on the ground and stayed there. The motorcycle was exactly where Derek had left it. After a quick inspection it was obvious that no one had tampered with it. He strapped the bags down and settled on the seat. Stiles sat behind him and gingerly latched onto Derek’s jacket again.

“Remember what I told you,” Derek said softly, “only if they try and stop us. If I tap your leg, hold on tighter or you might fall off. Got it?”  
“Got it.”

The bike had never seemed so loud before. As they left the barn, Derek could see a shape in one of the windows. It would take them a few minutes to figure out who it was that left; his bike wasn’t the only one in the barn that night. A few minutes should be enough.

He hit the main road fast and accelerated mercilessly, pushing the bike past eighty. Houses and shacks turned into blurs. He couldn’t slow down for the inner fence guard and he had no intention of doing so. He could only hope they didn’t try and shoot him as he passed.

The inner fence was open and he sped past it without an issue. The enforcer on duty did not have enough time to stand up before Derek was already gone from his view. But the outer fence was closed. He could see it in the distance, a shimmer where only the darkness should be. Gerard had known something was gonna go down. Even if it was just a hunch, it had been an accurate one. Derek would have to ram the fence and hope that no one had replaced the rotten old posts with new ones. Hope he didn’t break both their necks in doing so. He tapped Stiles’s thigh and felt the kid’s hands sneak around his waist. It was absolutely ridiculous how good that felt. Especially since they would both probably die.

A few feet away from the fence, he pulled the clutch in, then slipped it. Despite never having done this with a passenger in the back, the front wheel went up easily. Stiles gripped him even tighter. They hit the fence at ninety and the thing bent easily, the posts snapping with a crack. Derek felt himself pull at least a dozen muscles in his back, attempting to keep all of his weight on the front of the bike. The bike spun as it met resistance, then shot off to the side as the fence folded. Derek didn’t brake; instead he let the bike slide. Shots echoed and Derek ignored them, every muscle focused on staying upright.

He might have still had it straightened out in time if his shoulder hadn’t suddenly decided to stop obeying direction. Then they were falling, Stiles’s hands leaving his waist, the hard ground knocking the breath out of him. His head bounced off a rock and blood poured into his eyes; he cried out as the weight of the bike landed on his leg.

Another shot echoed. Two more in quick succession. He pulled out his gun and found himself blinded by blood. Furiously, he wiped at his face. He tried pushing the weight off his leg, but the metal beast was just too damn heavy. A hail of shots rang out and Derek couldn’t help but imagine them hitting Stiles, one after another. Had he gone through all this, betrayed Gerard and given up everything he’d spent years working for so the kid could get killed five feet outside the town? Worse, he was trapped. Any moment now the fence guard would appear above him and put a bullet through his skull. He attempted to yank his leg out again and pain shot all the way up his spine.

A shadow fell across the bike and he looked up, ready to try and strike the hardest bargain of his life.

It was Stiles.

Illuminated by moonlight, one hand still clutching the gun, dusty wind whipping at his back. Every trace of the kid who had begged for a permission to kill himself seemed gone. His face was a face of a stranger. He looked grounded, tall, unbreakable.

He was fucking beautiful.

“I got them,” he said.

Derek wanted to ask him if he intended to just stand there or help get the goddamned bike up.  
What came out of his mouth instead was entirely unexpected,  
“Are you hurt?”  
Stiles blinked and looked down at himself as if the thought had not occurred to him yet.  
“No. I don’t think so.”

He tucked the gun in the back of his jeans and knelt by Derek,  
“Here, I got it. I’ll lift, you pull.”

True to his word, he managed to lift the bike just enough for Derek to free his leg. It fucking hurt. He didn’t think it was broken but it was probably sprained somewhere. Knee, ankle, Derek couldn’t tell and it didn’t matter anyway. He wiped more blood out of his eyes and helped Stiles pick the bike up. Sharp, burning pain traveled through his shoulder and a river of blood slid down to his hand.

Well then. Apparently he was the one who got shot.

“Get moving,” he said, straddling the bike and gritting his teeth, “The back up is on their way by now.”  
Stiles didn’t hesitate.

“I shot them,” his voice shook as his hands gripped Derek’s jacket again, “Didn’t think I could, but I guess I was wrong. Shot both of them.”  
“Good. Hold on tight.”

The bike sputtered a few times then started back up. By the time the reinforcements showed up, there was nothing left but a cloud of dust and a pool of Derek’s blood.


	2. Chapter 2

The sky had never seemed so infinite before. Million of stars glittered above him. His mother had known every star and constellation by name. She would stretch out on the blankets next to him whenever they stopped for the night, and tell him stories about the days long gone, about the men who named the stars and men who explored them. It had been a long time since he could picture her face clearly, but he remembered her quiet voice, he remembered her stories so well that he could repeat them word for word. Thanks to her, he’d never felt small or insignificant under the night sky. She would end each story by telling him how special he is, a miracle child, and he’d believed it. He’d believed it for the longest time, never even questioning her words.

He felt small and insignificant now. The bike ate up the desert ground, each mile taking him further and further away from the place where he’d been sure he would die. In the first few miles he’d loved the rusty old beast like he’d never loved another piece of machinery. Loved it fiercely. Loved every scraggly bush, every rock and mound they passed. He’d loved the man in front of him, his leather jacket smelling of steel and gasoline, the wide shoulders protecting him from the wind. The adrenaline had been pumping through him furiously, making him feel invincible.

It wore off quickly.

His dad was gone. Their home burned to the ground. The village where he’d spent the last decade of his life had turned against him. If he ever showed his face there again, his old friends and neighbors would probably hand him right back over to Gerard. Never mind that his dad had dedicated his fucking life to them; that he’d healed their children, their broken bones, their fevers and pains. For decades, his dad had followed the Healer’s Code to the letter. He’d lived for no other reason than to ease the pain of others. And in the end, a wrong word spoken in the wrong ear was all it took. The betrayal almost hurt as much as the loss.

He’d been so sure that he would die. That Kate would kill him. Instead, both her and Gerard had seemed determined to keep him alive as long as possible. By then end of the first week, Stiles had prayed for death. By the end of the second week, he’d been ready to beg for it. Death had started to look like the light at the end of a tunnel. Anything to escape the torture and humiliation and pain.

This is what came as a result of his prayers. A man who strolled into Gerard’s world casually, without trepidation, without any doubts. A man who broke bread with a monster, drank with him, laughed with him. A man who was a monster himself, dragging a half dead woman behind him, handing her over to Gerard as if she were nothing but a piece of flesh. Six feet of wind beaten muscle, armed to the teeth, with eyes as cold as Kate’s, as if they were cut from the same cloth. A man who’d risked his life to get Stiles out of the Third Ring.

If this was a story someone else had told him, he never would’ve believed it.

Clutching Derek’s jacket as they sped through the desert, he couldn’t imagine why the man would do something like this. Stiles had nothing to offer. The only sort of knowledge he had was useless when stacked up against the pills Derek carried. At least before Kate had gotten the hold of him, he’d had his body. The first man he’d sold himself to had called him pretty. Stiles hadn’t been stupid enough to believe it, but now, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe he had been pretty, before. The last time Stiles had seen his own reflection, he couldn’t recognize the person staring back. And Derek had made it very clear that he wasn’t interested.

There was some comfort to be found in that at least. Stiles couldn’t imagine willingly giving himself to a man who could crush his throat without exerting any effort, not even if his life was on the line. But if Stiles had nothing to offer, then he was disposable. Derek could trade him for a handful of antibiotics and probably lose no sleep over it. The thought that the man might change his mind filled him with cold terror. Any moment now, Derek could realize that Stiles isn’t worth the trouble. He might not be willing to hand him back to Gerard, but he could easily trade him to Kali. It’s not like Stiles could do a single thing to prevent it. He was just as powerless now as he’d been back in the Ring. And knowing this killed the last bit of relief and exhilaration, replacing it with the good old fear.

The desert stretched out around them. For good part of the night, they sped easily down the cracked, dust covered pavement. Rusted shells and pieces of cars and truck lay in piles on the sides of the road, relics of an age that passed before Stiles was born. When the first light appeared in the East, they veered off the road and onto the uneven desert ground. That’s when the pain started.

It’s not like Stiles was a stranger to pain. It was a small price to pay for being free from the Ring. And really, it was barely a drop in a pond compared to all the things Kate had done for no better reason but to hear him scream. So he suffered in silence. He didn’t expect sympathy; Derek was hurt too. Stiles had seen him limp after he dragged himself from under the bike. He’d seen the blood dripping down the man’s arm, the blood smeared across his face. Because of Stiles. Derek had gotten hurt because of Stiles. The last thing he wanted to do was remind the man that Stiles was the one responsible for the bullet hole in his arm.

By the time the sun was almost half way up, he had to clench his teeth to keep himself from whimpering. His lower back howled. Every bump in the desert floor sent a flare of pain up his spine and across his stomach. He was bleeding again; he could feel the warmth of it in the seat of the jeans. The shirt was stuck to his back, now a part of the new scabs, pulling and tugging with every movement.

He forced himself to take deep, regular breaths. By the end of the first week in the Ring, just when Kate had started getting creative, Stiles had found a way to separate himself from the pain. It only worked for a few minutes at a time, but it had helped keep him sane. Especially when he was tied down in the lobby. When as many as twelve outriders could come in at one time and all take their turn. He couldn’t handle the never ending crescendo of pain that would go on for hours. He used to concentrate fiercely on cutting his mind off from his body; even if it didn’t always work, at least he wasn’t just lying there in terror, anticipating the next hot poker tearing up his insides.

Sitting on the back of the bike and feeling like his lower abdomen was slowly being shredded, he forced himself to breathe deeply and concentrate on not feeling the pain. Time stretched out.

Shortly after the sun passed its half way mark, the bike swerved alarmingly to the side. Stiles cried out softly in an effort to hold on. Under his hands, Derek tightened all over in an effort to keep the bike from tipping. It only lasted a few moments, then they were speeding along again like nothing had happened. Except that Stiles was now doubly terrified. How badly was the man actually hurt? What would happen if he just passed out in the middle of nowhere?

When the bike swerved again his heart climbed into his throat. The mountains loomed closer even though Stiles knew that distance was a deceptive thing in the desert. It would be hours, maybe even days before they reached the foot of them. Is that where they were heading? Stiles didn’t think either of them could go another hour without passing out. He’d been trying not to press himself against Derek; in his exhausted mind, he thought that maybe Derek would forget he was there, or forget what he’d been planning to do with him. The memory of the man’s eyes studying him in Gerard’s lobby, not an ounce of emotion to be found in them, definitely didn’t help. But he also wanted to be useful, to let Derek lean on him if he needed to. A useful person was less likely to be disposed of.

Sliding forward carefully and cringing in pain, he wrapped his arms around Derek’s waist. Derek stiffened under his hands and Stiles froze. He’d miscalculated. He was about to scoot back when he felt the man relax and lean some of his weight against Stiles’s chest. Sighing in relief, Stiles anchored himself a little better, sliding his bare feet forward on the foot pegs and clenching his teeth. For a few miles it was bearable. Then the real pain started. He’d had a hard enough time holding himself up on the bike; now he was supporting some of Derek’s weight too. All of his muscles screamed in protest, sweat coated him from head to toe, hot nails dug deep into his spine. Soon he was ready to beg Derek to stop the bike. He opened his mouth to do it twice and each time closed it without saying anything. He could bear another few minutes. He could.

The few minutes turned into an hour, then two. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on his breathing. His brain howled that he couldn’t stand another moment. He couldn’t.

Yet he did, mile after mile.

When the bike started slowing down, Stiles wanted to cry hysterically from the sheer relief. Never mind that there was nothing around them, that the desert had looked exactly the same half an hour ago, or hours ago. Never mind if this turned out to be the place where Derek would kill him and bury him in the dust. It was impossible to care about anything except getting off the bike.

They stopped at a sand covered rock formation that might have served as a marker point to somewhere. A large brush grew in front of it, branches twisted and littered with thorns. The moment Stiles got off the bike, cramps seized both of his legs. He sat down on the ground, hard, gasping in pain. He forcefully dug his fingers into the stubborn muscles, even though they felt like roots under his hands, tough and unyielding. By the time they eased up, Derek had moved the bush aside and pushed the bike into a narrow crevice in the rocks. He moved like an old man, dragging his right leg, dry blood crusted on his face. He put the brush back to hide the bike from the view and attempted to shoulder the saddle bags. For a few moments, Stiles couldn’t tell if the bags were going up or if Derek was going down. He moved to help without thinking, but Derek stopped him, the look in his eyes cold and unfriendly. Stiles stepped back.

When Derek took off into the the desert without a word, Stiles had no choice but to follow. It was slow going. Derek’s limp was more pronounced with every step, and Stiles was past exhaustion. The soles of his feet were scraped raw. The dust was burning his throat and eyes, and the setting sun was making him lightheaded. After a while, he just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. The sun was about to touch the West horizon when Derek finally stopped, and Stiles nearly stumbled into him.

Another rocky mound reared in front of them. Seven feet tall, no more than seven feet wide. Unless it was a damn tent in disguise, Stiles was pretty sure that the four foot crevice at the bottom of it couldn’t even house a good sized family of rabbits.

Derek sat down in front of it and slid inside awkwardly, feet first. Stiles stared at the space where the man had been for a few moments, so exhausted that his mind refused to rationalize what he’d seen. A hand shot out and grabbed the saddle bags to pull them in, and Stiles stumbled back, almost falling down again.

“Move,” came a tired voice from the inside,  
“and watch your head.”

He had to crawl down backwards, the rocks scraping his back and head no matter how low he stayed to the ground. The further down he moved though, the cooler the air became. It was still dry; the world had dried up years ago. But the shade and the cooler air wrapped around him like a blessing. He could see an artificial bright light in between his legs as he crawled down, nothing like the candle and oil flames he was familiar with. When there were no more steps he tried to straighten up and whacked his head against the rock ceiling. Letting out a string of silent swears, he shuffled backwards a few more steps and put his hands above his head, following the rising slope of it until his fingers encountered steel beams. He blinked a few times in the light, letting his eyes adjust, and looked around.

“I told you to watch you head,” Derek said.

Stiles had expected some sort of an underground cave but this space had been designed and built. Approximately twelve by sixteen feet, it had walls that were made from poured cement and a ceiling crisscrossed with beams.  
“Was this--?”  
“Someone’s basement. Once upon a time.”

Derek was sitting down on a metal cot in the corner and peeling his shirt off one-handed. A small aluminum table held a large lamp which looked like gas, but gave off the white, artificial glare of a battery operated bulb. In the last ten years Stiles had only seen two of those, and only one of them had been lit. Batteries had become as rare as the antibiotics Derek traded in. Sure, you could find some, but the chances of them working were getting slimmer by the year. Against the left wall, a row of plastic shelves held an assortment of supplies, everything from pots and cups to folded up blankets and clothes.

“Fuck,” Derek said softly.  
He’d managed to peel the shirt off and the scab on his shoulder right along with it. Fresh blood glistened as it ran down his arm.

Stiles found himself gapping at him. Jesus, the man was made like a mountain. His shoulders were the size of boulders. His arms roped in muscle. He was pale as a ghost in the light of the lamp. Even his lips were white. He rummaged through his backpack one handed and came up with a small bottle of clear fluid. Unscrewed it with his teeth, drank some, then dumped the rest over his shoulder.

Stiles winced. He supposed that was one way to sterilize it. Derek didn’t even flinch.

“Can I help?”  
“No.”  
A wave of self-loathing climbed up his throat and he swallowed it down. He watched the man tear up his shirt one handed, and tie it tightly around his shoulder. The entire process would have been faster and easier with another set of hands, but Stiles said nothing else. The man obviously didn’t want Stiles touching him, and Stiles could hardly blame him. He didn’t wanna touch himself either.

Derek pulled out two small plastic bags out of his saddle bags and threw them on the table.  
“The large ones are the pain pills I’ve been giving you. The other is the antibiotic.”  
He threw his backpack in Stiles’s direction and Stiles caught it before it hit the ground.  
“There’s bread and cheese in there. Water too. Eat. If you wanna lie down, there’s another cot folded up over by the wall.”  
“What about you?”  
“I need to rest.”  
He cringed as he lifted his right leg onto the cot. Moments later it looked like he was fast asleep.

Stiles could leave now. Just crawl back up to the desert and take off. He was already half way to the entrance, the backpack still clutched in his hands, before he paused. No, not like this. He should think about where to go, how to get there. He should make some sort of a plan before charging into the desert.

Derek couldn’t really have expected him to just sit around. Sure, Stiles couldn’t get far on foot, and he didn’t know the first thing about riding a bike, but Derek couldn’t have known that. And how hard could it be, riding the damn thing?

Ok, so maybe it would be kind of hard. But he knew how to turn it on, and he knew where the gas was, and he was pretty damn sure that he knew where the brakes were. Maybe.

And then what? The Rings were probably on fire with the news already. Stiles had killed two enforcers. The rest of them could be mapping the desert right now, looking for him. He still had Derek’s gun, and as it turned out, he was a pretty decent shot. If he came across any enforcers he could defend himself.

He ignored the way his stomach twisted at the thought of shooting someone else. What did it matter now? He’d never taken any oaths. He’d never sworn to bring no harm to others. His father had been the only Healer Stiles knew of; maybe there were no others. Maybe Gerard’s men had shot the last man on earth capable of mixing herbs and growing medicine from the land. There was no one left to hear Stiles’s oath even if he were willing to give it. No one left to guide and teach him. Stiles was alone in the world and he had killed two men.

And he was so fucking tired. Too tired to think, let alone make plans.

If Derek was planning on forcing him to stay, he would’ve at least handcuffed him to something. Maybe the man didn’t care. Maybe he would just let Stiles go. If not, this could hardly be the one and only time Stiles got a chance to run for it. But if he was going to be hopping across the desert by himself, he’d prefer to do so with a full stomach. And after sleeping for at least twelve hours.

He unfolded the other cot as quietly as he could, spread some blankets on it, drank some water and ate some food. He wanted to get rid of his blood-stained jeans but just the idea of standing up again was too much to bear.

He shut the lamp off. It seemed wasteful to leave it on if they were both going to be sleeping.

He laid there and stared at the darkness, feeling curiously abandoned. It didn’t last long. Soon he was asleep too.

\--

Derek woke up disoriented for the first time since he was a child. For a few moments he thought he was back home, and could almost hear his parent’s drunk friends singing, their voices echoing throughout the mountain. He reached out, expecting to feel Ali curled up next to him, and encountered nothing but air.

He blinked a few times in the darkness, wondering why his head felt so heavy. Was he sick?

He’d only had one bout of sickness as a child, a minor respiratory thing that had gone away in a matter of months. It hadn’t felt like this.

He tried to move and the pain threatened to paralyze him. The left side of his chest was on fire, his right leg pulsing like a rotten tooth.

Gritting his teeth, he sat up. Gasped.  
“Derek?”

It took him a while to recognize the voice. Stiles, the kid he’d rescued from the Third Ring. The kid that Derek had ruined a decade of hard work for. Why was his head so cloudy?

The lamp flared to life, the light shooting a bolt of pain through Derek’s skull. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to adjust.

“Hey, are you all right?”  
The kid’s voice took on a slight edge of worry. Derek must look as bad as he felt.

He opened his eyes and saw Stiles squatting in front of him, the worry in his voice reflecting on his features.

The kid was so damn pretty. Derek had gambled on close to two hundred lives for a pretty face. He wanted to laugh. Instead he groaned again.

The small space felt hotter than a pit of hell, but he wasn’t sweating. That probably meant he had a fever. If he had a fever then the gunshot wound was already infected. He should’ve disinfected it last night but he’d wanted to get as far away as possible from the Third Ring without stopping. He’d known that once he got off the bike, no force in the word could have gotten him back on it. If Stiles hadn’t spent the last couple of hours holding him upright they wouldn’t have even made it this far. The mountains were still a day away. He would never make it.

They would never make it.

“What time of day is it?”  
Stiles blinked,  
“I-- I don’t know. I’ll run up and check.”

He left and Derek closed his eyes again. It seemed like only a split second went by before the boy was tentatively touching his good knee. As soon as Derek opened his eyes, Stiles pulled his hand back quickly.  
“It’s late morning. We slept the night through. And then some.”  
“Can you ride?”  
“Can I ride?”  
“The bike. Can you ride the bike. Do you know how.”  
“Um-- “ the kid licked his lips nervously, his features rearranging into something that Derek couldn’t read, “I don’t know. I’ve never ridden anything like that, so probably not.”

Derek’s head was starting to pound alarmingly. He wasn’t sure that he could stay on the back of the bike, even if Stiles could manage to ride it. His right knee looked pretty fucked up. It was about two sizes larger than the other, the jeans straining across the swollen flesh. He couldn’t even imagine taking his pants off to look at it. Just moving the leg was painful. His shoulder howled and burned. He would have to take some of that hard earned cephalosporin just to be able to battle the infection long enough to make it home.

Helpless fury flooded him. He’d fucked up badly this time.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles said softly, and he sounded sorry.  
Worse, his voice held an undertone of fear Derek didn’t care for.

“Go into my saddle bags. There’s a lock box in there.”

Stiles obeyed quickly, searching his way around until he came up with the box. He handed it to Derek. Slipping the key off his neck, Derek unlocked the box and pulled out the bag of pills. Stiles handed him a bottle of water and Derek took the antibiotic along with two pain pills. They would barely even dull the pain, but he took them anyway. If the fever subsided a little bit maybe he’d stop feeling like his head was about to float away.

Then he gritted his teeth and attempted to take the bandage off his shoulder.  
“Let-- let me help.”  
Without waiting for Derek’s permission, Stiles scooted closer and carefully began to unwind the bandage. The kid’s fingers brushing against his skin sent shivers down Derek’s spine. Suddenly, he was freezing. His teeth wanted to chatter. He knew it was just the fever, that it wasn’t real, but he felt cold down to his bones.

“Jesus,” Stiles whispered as the bandage came off completely.  
Derek didn’t want to look at it. What difference did it make? He knew it was bad.  
“There’s rubbing alcohol in the saddle bags. It’s in a cloudy glass bottle. There’s also...” God, he had to focus, “...a jar. That stuff I used on your cuts. It has a black x on the side. Get them both.”

Stiles cleaned the wound with surprising gentleness and spread the salve over it. Tore another long strip from Derek’s shirt and wrapped it tightly. By the time it was done, Derek felt like he’d ran for miles. He just wanted to lie down and sleep for days.

“What about the knee?” Stiles asked.  
“Never mind the fucking knee.”

The kid shrank away and Derek instantly felt guilty.  
“It’s a sprain,” he said, “it’ll just have to go away on its own.”  
Stiles nodded jerkily, tucking the bottles back in the saddle bags.

“Stiles.”  
The kid looked up at him, his face tight.  
“Thank you,” Derek said.  
Stiles looked away.

There was so much more Derek wanted to say but his head would not cooperate. It didn’t matter anyway. The next time he opened his eyes, the kid would be gone. Derek’s saddle bags would be gone and his bike would be gone. Nothing kept Stiles from leaving but fear, and how scary was Derek now, with a raging infection and a fever that was already clouding his mind? He deserved whatever happened; he was too miserable to fight it.

\--

Stiles explored the shelves. He found a pair of pants just a size too large and put them on. The blood stained pair went into the corner; he didn’t want to look at them. He found a pair of socks too, but no boots. Maybe by the time they were ready to continue on, his feet would be in better shape. He took the Penicillin and ignored the bag of pain pills. He knew them by smell. A relatively weak pain pill but an effective fever reducer. Derek definitely needed them more than Stiles did.

Derek slept. Every so often he would push off the blankets, fumbling for them only moments later when his teeth started chattering. Stiles left the lamp on and curled up on his side so he could see the man toss and turn. He was afraid to close his eyes, to let him out of his sight. He could still feel the scorching fire of the Derek’s skin on his fingertips. He’d seen men die from fevers, had seen their brains fry from the heat. His dad had told him that once upon a time, a few aspirin used to be sufficient to bring down the worst fevers. These days, almost ninety percent of the medicine left over from the old world was useless. With every passing year, the potency of those few precious leftovers was decreasing. The art of making medicine was slowly dying. Soon, probably within Stiles’s lifetime, those who got sick would be left to die.

Sometime between wrapping the man’s shoulder and watching him drift off to sleep, Stiles had put aside his half-hearted plans to sneak away. He was safe for now. There was food and water here. A bed. Medicine. And Derek had betrayed Gerard to get Stiles out of the Ring. That had to count for something. It had to mean something.

Did Derek still see him as someone disposable? Maybe. But probably not right now, as sick as he was. He needed someone, and lucky for him, Stiles was still there. He wouldn’t hesitate to remind Derek of it if the man decided to be an asshole later on. Plus, maybe it was just Stiles’s imagination, but it seemed like something had shifted in between them. Something in the way Derek spoke to him.

The man had actually thanked him. Did monsters do that?

There was nothing he could do now but wait to see if the antibiotics did their job. The knee, he could do something about, if Derek would stop being stubborn. He was right in assuming that the sprain would go away on its own. Still, it would go away faster if Stiles wrapped it to keep the swelling down, and if Derek let him keep it elevated. Some cold water would help too but there was none of that to be had. From what Stiles had seen in Derek’s saddle bags, their water supply would run out in a couple of days. Fever made for a terrible thirst.

The food was running low too. Stiles hoped that there was more of it than the bread and the cheese Derek had stashed away in his backpack. Five days heading West from the Third Ring would have brought them to the First. Stiles had heard Derek tell Gerard that this was where he was heading, and his supplies showed that he’d planned on restocking once he got there. The Second Ring was just as far away, to the North of the Third. Instead they’d been riding East. As far as Stiles knew, there was nothing to the East but the mountains. Somewhere far beyond the mountains, according to an outrider Stiles had known, was the ocean. He wondered if he would get to see it.

\--

“Stiles.”

Stiles flinched, realizing he’d fallen asleep. He jerked up so fast that he almost fell out of the cot. Derek was trying to use his right arm to sit himself up and failing. His eyes were glazed over with the fever, his face flushed with the heat. He attempted to swing his legs off the cot and his face contorted in pain.

“Don’t,” Stiles said quickly, snatching up blankets off the shelf, “don’t move. Here.”  
He piled up the blankets behind Derek so the man could sit up without moving his leg.  
“Water,” Derek gasped.

Stiles snatched the bottle off the table. While the man drank, he took out another antibiotic and two more pain pills. Derek swallowed them without a question even though neither one of them knew how much time had passed since the last one. Stiles crouched by the cot.

“How long?” Derek asked.  
“I don’t know. Do you want me to go check?”  
The man closed his eyes, “It doesn’t matter.”

Stiles wished that he could wipe the dry blood off Derek’s face. It looked different now, flushed with fever, younger than Stiles had initially thought. It was definitely an impressive face, made up of sharp angles and plains that made the soft parts all the more noticeable. Delicate crows feet fanned from the corners of his eyes. Faint laugh lines were etched around his mouth. It was actually beautiful in a way, if one bothered to look carefully. And Stiles had had nothing to do but sleep and look.

“How much water is left?” Derek asked.  
“Three bottles.”

The glazed eyes focused on Stiles. In the lamplight the gold around the iris intensified, just a faint ring of green still left around the edge.

“Before the water runs out, take the bike and head to the mountains. Keep an eye on the three of the lowest peaks. You want to always be facing the one on the far left. Someone will meet you at the foothills, they’ll recognize the bike. Tell them-- tell them what happened. They’ll take you in. You’ll be safe there.”

His words made Stiles lightheaded. They confirmed that he was not a prisoner, that Derek hadn’t taken him out of the Third Ring just to trade him for something. They implied that there was a place where he would be safe, with or without Derek. A part of him didn’t want to believe it, insisting that he should stay on guard. A part of him wanted to kick the man. Couldn’t he have said something earlier? Did he have any clue how close Stiles had come to abandoning his feverish ass?

“Let me do something about the knee.”  
Derek shut his eyes, “I told you. It’s just a sprain.”  
“I can make it go down faster.”  
Every line in the man’s face screamed of exhaustion.  
“Fine,” he said, “do whatever you want.”

He stayed silent as Stiles dug through the backpack and came up with a knife. Didn’t move or flinch as Stiles cut his pants to get at the knee. Derek’s legs were dusted with dark hair, the knee crisscrossed with old, faded scars, the muscles steel hard under Stiles’s hands. He felt his face heat for no reason.

“My dad was a Healer,” he said to distract himself, “He taught me everything he knew about medicine and herbs.”  
“Easier to find the medicine,” Derek muttered.

Wrapping the knee tightly, Stiles spoke without thinking,  
“We grew our own herbs.”

Derek was silent for a few moments. When Stiles looked up he saw that the man was studying him carefully. Something in that gaze made his face heat even harder.

“That’s why Gerard had him killed,” he blurted out, “My dad wasn’t a traitor. He told the wrong man to stay away from Gerard’s medicine, that we could heal his daughter. He was trying to help.”

Derek looked away and said nothing. They were both silent as Stiles finished up, rolled up another blanket and elevated Derek’s leg.

Eventually Derek fell back asleep. Stiles settled on the cement floor with his back resting against Derek’s cot. When the man woke up, Stiles wanted to be within reach.

\--

The morning his dad was killed, Stiles had gone down the street to check on Joe’s youngest kid. The boy had been three years old, and he’d been screaming from head pains for two days, without a pause. Stiles could still recall his ear-splitting shrieks. There was nothing any of them could do about it. His dad had called it a side effect of the dust; a minor side effect compared to some of the others. The real danger was the bloody cough that very few kids managed to live thorough. All they could do was ration the precious herbs among the worst cases and hope it would be enough. Joe had been so grateful for the handful of feverfew, although it would barely lessen the pain.

Stiles had heard the motorcycles approach. He’d heard the ominous silence as the engines cut off. Never, in a million years, did he think that they were there for his dad. He’d only rushed home to spread the news, that Gerard’s men were in the village and probably looking for something. Once in a while they were willing to trade. Stiles didn’t have much to offer but he’d been willing to sell himself if the reward was high enough. He’d done it twice by then; once for rubbing alcohol and once for a handful of Penicillin. His dad had known but they never talked about it.

What was there to say?

He’d heard the gunshot and started running, afraid that someone had discovered the hidden garden behind their house. It had been nearly impossible to get it going, months of sifting through soil and filtering the water, protecting the little herbs from the dust and the sun. The thought of having to start all over again had been more frustrating than anything else. He’d still believed that whatever was happening, they’d be able to get away with slap on the wrist. The village had loved his dad, had respected him. Stiles had been sure that no one would allow anything really bad to happen. This conviction had lasted right up until the moment he saw a familiar shape lying in a heap, a pool of blood spreading through the dirt.

Gerard’s boys were pulling away by then, the flames already licking the cottage walls, the last decade of Stiles’s life about to disappear into the smoke. His dad had been the one whose brains were scattered across the yard, but Stiles was the one who’d lost his fucking mind. He could barely remember grabbing the pipe. He did remember the satisfying crunch of it connecting with a man’s midsection. He remembered knocking Kate off her bike. She’d gone down silently but her passenger had shrieked in pain, trapped under the bike. It was the shriek that woke Stiles up. Before that moment, he’d never harmed another human being in his life. His dad would have been horrified.

His mother had been a Healer too, while she lived. His parents had met in the Third Ring long before Gerard came around, back when there were no laws or enforcers, just dust and survival. They were married only a year later. The fact that Stiles had lived was nothing short of a miracle. The fact that he’d never had the bloody cough or any of the other side effects was unheard of. Some of his earliest memories involved children coughing up blood on the side of the road and his mother passing out medicine from the bus which had been their home. The three of them had crisscrossed the desert dozens of times before Stiles turned twelve. They’d only settled down after she’d died.

Stiles had learned everything they had to teach him, and with each passing year that knowledge was worth less and less. The world was changing. The rains used to come rarely and when they had, they’d been sour and dangerous. Stiles hadn’t seen rain since he was fifteen. Nothing grew any more. What was the point of knowing that the birch wood coal would draw out ninety percent of the toxins out of Derek’s wound? That an infusion of stinging nettle, horsetail, birch, and dandelion leaves would definitely improve his chances? Stiles hadn’t seen a plant grow on its own in years. They had been fighting a losing battle, him and his dad. Now his dad was dead, and Stiles was a murderer. He’d killed two men and it had been as easy as breathing. He felt no guilt either. He would kill them all over again if the chance presented itself.

He glanced again at Derek’s face.

Stiles’s dad had secretly despised men like Derek. He’d considered them to be a necessary evil. The men who crisscrossed the desert with bags full of pills were not doing it for the benefit of the human kind. They did it for profit, making their living from the pain and suffering of others. They held all the cards, set their own prices, were Gods to most ordinary people. They were protected and pampered by tyrants like Gerard, respected by the cruelest enforcers, no one was ever allowed to speak a word against them. Dad had called them vultures and Stiles had agreed wholeheartedly.

What kind of a man would throw all that away to save another?

Maybe a man who wasn’t like all the rest. Stiles wanted to believe that more than anything. He tried not to think about the fact that Derek had left a woman to die, that he’d traded one life for another with the same ease he’d traded the medicine. He had to believe that Derek was nothing like Gerard.

There was no one left, in the world, who cared if Stiles lived or died. He had nothing left that he could call his own, not even the clothes on his back.

In less than forty eight hours Derek had become his entire life.

\--

“Come on! Don’t be a coward!”

The words stung even though he didn’t show it. Paige didn’t mean it either. Her smiling face hung over the rock outcropping, the long brown hair curling around her face. Despite the twenty foot distance Derek could see the mischief glinting in her eyes.

He started to climb after her slowly and carefully, the way he’d always done everything. Paige was the one who always leaped without knowing where she would land. Derek had to study every step twice before deciding to place his foot on it. He could hear her laugh above him. It was a familiar laugh, full of delight. A coil of heat unfolded in Derek’s stomach at the sound.

He loved that laugh. Loved the way Paige’s stomach vibrated under his lips, the breathless giggles brushing against his neck, the lips curving against his skin.

“Come on! You’ll never catch me that way!”

Derek climbed. The sun beat as his back, burning his skin. It was hotter than usual and he was getting thirsty. Had he known Paige would want to climb, he would have brought some water. But he never knew. Paige was mercury, slippery and unpredictable, dangerous and beautiful. Derek would follow her to the end of the world without a question.

He looked up and Paige grinned down at him, still twenty feet away. Derek wanted to complain. It wasn’t fair. She’d gotten a head start. She was faster and lighter than Derek; she climbed the rocks with ease that Derek could never match, no matter how hard he tried. He would never catch up to her. The heat was starting to make him feel lightheaded, the rocks burning under his fingers.

“Just a little further up! Hurry!”

He climbed faster. The glare of the light reflecting from the rocks made his eyes water. Suddenly he felt exhausted, as if he’d been climbing for days. His muscles trembled from the effort to reach the next ledge, the next handhold. He wanted to rest. He wanted to lie down with Paige wrapped around him, and close his eyes against the glare.

His foot slipped. He grabbed a rock and it broke off in his hand like a piece of clay. Frantically he clawed for another and his fingernails only scraped against it.

Pain shot through his leg. He was falling. Jesus fucking Christ, he was going down.

His shoulder slammed against the rocks and he screamed in pain.

“Derek!”  
His hand shot up and latched onto something solid and warm.

Paige?

“Derek! Wake up!”

He blinked the moisture out of his eyes. The glare of the sun turned into the glare of the lamp. The eyes above him were brown.

Brown.

Paige’s eyes had been green. Green like his own.

Fingers curled over his hand, the pads cool and calloused. Brown eyes, wide with fear.

Not Paige.

Stiles.

Trying to loosen Derek’s hand. The hand which was gripping Stiles’s upper arm hard enough to bruise; so tightly that Derek’s fingers were beginning to cramp. Pain flickered through the fear on the kid’s face and Derek let go quickly, his heart beating in his ears. What the fuck? What the fuck was going on?

Instead of stepping back, Stiles only rubbed his arm, “You were dreaming.”  
His voice shook.

Derek had been dreaming. Paige was dead. Paige was dead and Derek hurt. Every muscle, every inch of his skin hurt. His shoulder was in agony, a flaming, sharp knife of pain twisting and twisting until he wanted to scream. He opened his mouth and nothing came out. His throat was hot and swollen. He tried to lift his head and the world tilted alarmingly, a wave of nausea flooding him in moments.

Fuck, this was bad. This was worse than he thought.

A cool hand snuck under his neck. He felt the neck of the plastic bottle against his lips. The water washed through him in a rush. His eyes watered again, his nose clogged, his brain kickstarted like a rusty engine. Never, in his life, had he tasted anything so sweet.

When Stiles took the bottle back Derek felt almost human again. The hand lowered his head back down and went away. Derek wanted to ask for it back, wanted to press it against his cheek. His skin was on fire. He tried to focus and couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be focusing on. Ali. She didn’t know. If he died here, she would never know what had happened.

“I need to change this dressing,” Stiles said softly, “it’s going to hurt.”

Hurt more than it already did? Derek doubted that very much. Paige had broken her arm once. Even that couldn’t keep her down. She’d refused to stay still; she’d snuck out with Derek into the desert and they made love carefully, under the stars. Derek had been so terrified of hurting her. Ali got sick a lot too. She’d had the bloody cough, fevers, headaches. His Ali was a survivor.

Pain flared through his chest and he groaned.  
“Sorry,” Stiles said, his voice tense and afraid, “I’m sorry.”

He wanted to tell the kid that there was no reason to be afraid. Derek wouldn’t hurt him. He wasn’t a fucking monster. He wasn’t.

The next flare of pain blinded him. He heard himself cry out.  
“Fuck,” Stiles whispered unsteadily next to him, “Fuck, fuck. I’m sorry.”

When the pain came again, the world went black.


	3. Chapter 3

There were actual clouds in the sky. Stiles watched them curiously as they sailed past the mountains. Behind him, the sun was setting again. How many sunsets had he seen since leaving the Third Ring? He’d lost count. Three? Four? 

Did it matter? 

The food had nearly run out. He was forced to dig through every inch of Derek’s bags which he really hadn’t wanted to do. The man carried more crap than Stiles would have thought possible. How many guns did he actually need? Batteries, bottles of booze, knives, gloves, millions of little odds and ends. Two books too. He was half way though one of them already; the waiting would’ve driven him crazy without it. He’d found more food too, although the salted strips of beef had made the lack of water even harder to bear. 

Derek’s fever had broken that morning. The wound looked better but it would leave one hell of a scar. The man had yet to wake up. Stiles had seen his dad lance wounds before, but that hadn’t prepared him for having to do the same with no supplies and no help. His hands had been coated in blood and pus in minutes, the knife slipping and sliding out of his fingers. He’d worked quickly, but Derek’s cries had unnerved him and the sheer amount of blood had terrified him. For a while there he’d been afraid that he would have to cauterize the wound just to stop the bleeding. Some village hacks swore by it, but Stiles knew that searing the wound would only cause more damage to the tissue. He’d ended up using most of the rubbing alcohol Derek had in stock. A great deal of it went to sterilizing his hands, the knife, everything else he was using. 

It worked. Stiles had actually patched someone up. He’d spent the last fifteen years of his life preparing to do just that, having no doubts whatsoever that this was to be his calling in life.

Everything was different now.

The dusty wind beat at his back. He’d taken an extra pair of sunglasses and a bandana out of Derek’s backpack so he could spend more time above ground. He’d crawled out there after lancing Derek’s wound too; the taste of salt and metal had lingered in the back of his throat for a long time. The stale and acrid desert air had actually been a welcome change. It was getting to the point where he was starting to feel claustrophobic every time he was forced to spend hours under ground. But he didn’t dare leave Derek alone for long. At least not until the fever broke, until he was sure that the man would live. 

The clouds sailed away and out of sight. He crawled back down.

Derek was sitting on the side of the cot, gun pointed at the entrance. 

Stiles froze, watching the man’s face transform from intense focus to genuine surprise mixed with something else, something naked and vulnerable. Whatever it was, it was gone so quickly that Stiles would wonder later if he’d just imagined it.

Derek put the gun down,  
“I thought you’d left.”

His voice was hoarse. Only now Stiles could see his hands shake, the faint sheen of sweat on his skin. He removed the glasses and bandana and placed them carefully on the table. Grabbed a bottle of water and the next dose of pills. Gave them to Derek. 

Derek took them. Stiles could feel the man’s gaze on his skin, on his face, his neck. The underground space suddenly grew smaller.

“How long?”  
Stiles sat down on the ground in front of him, noticing that the knee looked much better,  
“Since the last time you woke up? A night and two days.”  
He pulled the man’s backpack over and dug up the last of the bread and cheese. Passed them over.

Derek stared at the yellow wedge and the corner of the loaf for a long time before looking up at Stiles.

Stiles felt his face grow hot,  
“I found the meat so I’ve been eating that. I figured this might go down easier. When you could eat again.”

Derek held the food in his hands if he didn’t know what to do with it.  
“Why did you stay?”

That was a damn good question. 

Not so long ago Stiles would have said that his destiny was to become a Healer. And a Healer would never abandon someone in need. 

He was pretty damn sure that wasn’t true any more. 

He owed Derek his life. It would be easy to say that the debt was now repaid, even if Stiles knew that it would never be repaid, that the fate Derek had saved him from was worse than death. Except that he didn’t stay to repay a debt either. 

Maybe because without Derek, he really had nothing. His entire world had been turned on its head. He’d become a stranger to himself, inside and out. Derek was the only thing left in his world which stood grounded. The only thing with a handhold that Stiles could latch on to.

He couldn’t put any of that into words so he shrugged,  
“You said when the water was all gone. There’s still water left.”  
“You haven’t been drinking.”  
“I wasn’t thirsty.”

\--

It took a long, long time to walk back to the place where he’d stashed the bike. Stiles was carrying the saddle bags. He’d snatched them up before Derek could even attempt to pick them up. He’d actually opened his mouth to tell the kid that he was perfectly capable of carrying his own bags, then changed his mind. There was something different about Stiles now. Whatever it was made the kid stand up straight and look Derek in the eye. It was an improvement, a step in the right direction. 

By the time Derek had pulled the bike back out and strapped the saddle bags back on, he was forced to sit down and rest. They had the entire night ahead of them, but Derek wanted to cover as much ground as possible before the sun came up. The sun would make it harder. The lack of water would make it harder. He had no one but himself to blame. Whenever he was forced to make decisions under pressure, nothing ever worked out the way it should. He could accomplish any clear cut task easily, but ask him to think on his feet and he will get himself shot and stranded in the middle of the desert. With no water. 

This is why he’d always left all the planning to Ali. 

All night long he gritted his teeth. Once upon a time he’d considered his bike to be the smoothest ride he’d ever come across. Of course, that was before every little jolt made his shoulder flare up in pain. Stiles sat pressed up against him, arms tightly wound around his waist. That part at least felt nice. It made the pain more bearable. 

When the first light appeared above the mountains they took a break. Derek felt like he could lie down on the desert ground and sleep the entire day away. Stiles sat down, rifled through the saddle bags and came up with more meat. 

Derek sighed. Not only had the kid not been drinking, but he apparently hadn’t been eating either. When Stiles tried passing him the last of the water, about the third of a bottle, Derek shook his head.

“It’s for the pills,” Stiles said.  
“I can take them without the water. Drink.”  
“We can share it.”  
“I’m good without it.”  
Stiles rubbed his hand across the scruff on his face and took a deep breath,  
“If you pass out, you’ll kill us both. And if by some miracle you don’t kill us, I’m not dragging your heavy ass all the way to the mountains.”

He couldn’t help but picture Stiles dragging him to the foot of the mountains, probably cursing the entire way. The kid would do it too. He was just stubborn enough to go through with it. 

Or maybe stubborn wasn’t the right word. 

“Fine,” Derek said, took the bottle and drank half of what was left. 

Stiles drank the rest. He tucked the empty bottle into the saddle bags and glanced back West, as he’d often done since they’d left. Derek could understand the compulsion to make sure that no one was following them. This time however, the kid’s gaze widened, every muscle in his body tensing. Derek’s hands were on his guns before he got to his feet, eyes following Stiles’s gaze.

His throat dried.

A dark mass gathered in the sky to the west, blacker than the night sky, faint edges of purple searing the blue. The ground below it had completely disappeared, the rest of the world abruptly cut off behind a wall of black and gray. 

“Fuck,” Stiles said, and there was that fear again.  
Derek was beginning to hate the undertone of it. Each time he heard it, it scraped against him like a dull blade. 

“Move,” he snapped, snatching up the bags.

They were on the bike and speeding East again only moments later. They never should have stopped, not even for a few minutes. It was stupid. He pushed the bike past seventy miles an hour, the desert blurring around them. Stiles gripped him tight enough to leave bruises. There was no shelter anywhere near. Not this close to the mountains; there had been no point. He could see the dark mass in the back of them moving closer. It was covering the ground at almost the same speed. 

This was no regular storm like the ones he saw every day. This was a killer; one of those that came around a few times a year. And it was the right season for them, if one could tell seasons when the weather never changed. Derek pushed the bike to eighty. Eighty five. Dangerous speed in the desert. One well placed rock would fling them both and the bike so far that they would shatter into millions of pieces. Something, there had to be something. A ditch, a good sized rock, anything. At this speed, they could stay ahead of it all the way to the mountains. But did he dare ride at this speed for hours? It would be better if they could take shelter somewhere until it passed. From this distance, he couldn’t tell if they would be forced to stay sheltered for hours or minutes. Some of the worst storms in his memory had lasted days. They wouldn’t know until it was too late. Until they were trapped without a drop of water.

And the bike? It could sit through a few minutes of sandblasting. But hours? His gas tank would be full of dust. If he risked it and the storm took a long time to pass, could they make it the rest of the way on foot with no water?

When he saw a massive rock formation in the distance, he still hadn’t made up his mind. Stop? Or try and reach the mountains? If it was just him, he would stop and huddle until it passed. But what about Stiles? Fear made men do stupid things. He couldn’t imagine trying to explain to the kid that they were just going to sit next to a rock until the storm passed and that it might take hours. Hours of sitting blind, barely able to breathe, unable to see or hear. What if he bolted? The storm would kill him.

He sped past the rock formation without stopping. 

It was the shortest and the longest ride of his life. He’d never before dared to cover so much ground so quickly. Judging by the sun, they reached the foothills in a matter of hours. Judging by Derek’s shoulder, a lifetime had gone by. His head was pounding from exhaustion and thirst. His vision was starting to blur. He had to slow down to make his way in between the rocks, and when he was finally forced to stop, the storm was close. Too close to make it to the camp. He left the saddle bags and the bike behind. He grabbed a hold of Stiles’s wrist and pulled him to the largest crevice within a running distance. To his credit, the kid asked no stupid questions. He tucked himself in between the rocks and retied his bandana with shaky hands so it covered his ears too. Derek didn’t have the time to do the same.

When the storm hit, the world went black. Millions of grains of sand beat against him furiously, embedding into his ears, attacking his eyes, trying to make their way inside the bandana. Derek felt like a giant pin cushion. God, he fucking hated dust. Hated it more than anything. 

Stiles’s fingers latched on to his shirt. Without a second thought Derek found Stiles’s hand and pulled him over. It was disorienting, being trapped in the pitch black with sand howling all around them. He felt the kid press against him and told himself that it was just the disorientation, the need to feel something solid. Derek was solid enough; wrapping an arm around Stiles’s shoulders, he could pretend that he was only sheltering him from the worst of the storm. But it was impossible to ignore how much faster his heart beat when the kid tucked himself under Derek’s arm, his face hidden in Derek’s shoulder. 

It didn’t matter. In a few days, Derek would be riding out again and leaving Stiles behind. By the time Derek saw him again, Ali would probably have Stiles settled down with one of the girls. 

He was surprised to find out how much that thought bothered him.

\--

Stiles watched the dust clouds around them grow lighter. He was still pressed against Derek, face buried in his shoulder. 

For a moment there, in the pitch black, he was convinced that the dust would clear and Derek would be gone. That he would simply disappear, like he’d never existed. The thought had scared him more than the storm itself. He latched on to the man’s jacket, willing him to stay close. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but Derek pulling him over was definitely not it. Stiles found himself practically crawling into the man’s lap. When had the gone from being afraid of him to feeling safer next to him? 

Maybe he was an idiot for thinking that way. He’d been an idiot about many things in the past. He really hoped that this wasn’t one of them.

The sand still swirled around them but the sun was breaking through, coloring it blood red at first, then rust and copper until it began to fade into yellows. When they could make out most of the rocks around them, Derek stood up and pulled Stiles to his feet. Letting go of him turned out to be ridiculously hard. Stiles wanted to grab on to the man’s jacket as they made their way back to the bike, but stopped himself just in time. Feeling safe to next to him was one thing, but holding on to him like a child was embarrassing. He had to get a grip.

The poor bike looked even worse for the wear. Countless new little scrapes covered it from end to end. It had just sat through the world’s largest sand blaster; Stiles wondered if it would even start. Derek didn’t bother finding out. 

His voice was muffled behind the bandana,  
“We’re going on foot from here.”

Over the rocks and up the mountain with no shoes. Stiles gritted his teeth and nodded. Hopefully they didn’t have far to go.

Derek tucked the bike away in the same crevice where they had hid from the storm, then shouldered the saddle bags and the backpack again. Stiles had a bad feeling that his feet would be bleeding again before the day was through. 

\--

The sun had barely moved at all when Stiles spotted a flash of white in between the rocks. He grabbed Derek’s jacket to point it out but the man had already seen it it. His face transformed in front of Stiles’s eyes, growing lighter, softer. The sight of it did something odd to Stiles’s chest. A bubble formed under his rib cage, sharp and uncomfortable. 

The figure in white hopped down the mountain side, moving quickly and precisely, disappearing behind the rocks one moment and appearing again in the next. Then she was only feet away from them, running over the rocks, long tan legs and dark hair, loose shirt fluttering behind her. She seemed to barely touch the ground, flying into Derek’s arms, almost knocking him down. 

Stiles felt like she’d kicked him in the stomach. His face tingled and turned numb. 

There was another figure moving down the mountain side, and Stiles focused on the stranger’s progress. He didn’t have to look at the girl. He’d noticed everything about her already. Dimples when she smiled. Graceful neck above perfectly sculpted collar bones. Ridiculous cheekbones. Really. Who had cheekbones like that?

“Stiles,” he heard Derek say.

He’d removed his bandana, so Stiles pulled his off too, feeling filthy and somehow embarrassed. 

Also, small. And bruised. And for some reason, like he wanted to sit down and cry for a year. 

The girl stood next to Derek, comically small compared to his large frame. There was a type of softness to her face, despite the sharp cheekbones. She looked tiny and fragile next to Derek, her brown eyes studying Stiles carefully, like he was some new kind of species she hadn’t yet come across.

“This is Allison,” Derek said, “My sister.”

Stiles got a second kick to his stomach in a matter of minutes. He’d never seen a smile that wide on the man before. 

“Sister,” he said stupidly.  
“Half sister,” Derek said.

Allison tilted her head slightly and Stiles had a funny feeling that she could tell just how unreasonably relieved he was by Derek’s words.

She extended her hand, “Nice to meet you Stiles.”  
He grasped it briefly, surprised to feel that her palms were just as calloused as his own.  
“Nice to meet you too,” he said and actually meant it.

The man had finally managed to make his way over to them, looking awkward as he clasped Derek’s hand. He was taller than Stiles too, his dirty blonde hair a mess of curls that stuck up in the back as if he had a habit of rubbing his head. 

“Isaac,” Derek sounded pleased to see him, “it’s been a while.”  
The man jerked his head in agreement.  
“Stiles, this is Isaac. Isaac, Stiles.”  
Stiles stuck out his hand and the man looked at it for a moment as if trying to figure out what it was. Then he shook it quickly, the skin contact minimal. His eyes were ridiculously blue, and when they met Stiles’s, it was clear that the man couldn’t care less who he was or where he came from.

“Isaac is a genius,” Derek offered.  
Stiles didn’t know what that meant. 

Allison surprised him by linking her arm through his and pulling him away from the two men,  
“Come. You look tired. There’s food and water at the camp. Where are your boots?” 

\--

They were inside the mountain. Seeing Stiles gape, Allison smiled.  
“It wasn’t always like this. The mountain shifted and split when the world burned I think. Well, Isaac thinks and he should know.”

It was the largest crevice he’d ever seen. It was almost a valley, but well hidden; instead of the mountain sloping away from it, the cracked walls went straight up. It looked like something had cut into the mountain, slicing it roughly from end to end. The light was muted inside, the air almost cool. Numerous caves and ledges dotted both sides, people leaning out to stare at them. In some places, rough and uneven stone steps led up. In others, a knotted rope was the only way to climb. They passed a small pen which held about a dozen rabbits. Numerous flat rocks covered in lizard and snake skins. Mirrors, arranged up the walls of the mountain, reflecting the light down into certain parts of the crevice. Old car parts, bench seats, windshield glass. Dozens of leftovers from the Old World, now being used in ways their creators would have never imagined. Colorful swatches of cloth hung from the makeshift doorways of the caves. But more amazing than anything was the green. They were growing things. Stiles could smell mint and sage and millions of other herbs. Countless little mismatched buckets of green littered the rocky floor. The light from the mirrors was focused on the greenery, making everything else seem drab in comparison. Creeping vines crawled up the mountain walls, a few of them sprouting grape-like bunches of white flowers. 

He wanted to know how they managed to filter so much water? Where were they getting their soil from? How many people lived here? How was it possible that no one in the Rings knew?  
He didn’t ask. The way his questions were answered would be more than a clear indication of what his status around here would be. He wasn’t ready to know that. 

He tried to tell himself that he should still be on guard, regardless of everything, but he was tired and thirsty and everything around him was just too much to take in. The visual overload of colors, scents, movement, it was making him nauseous and a faint headache was starting to form behind his eyes. The people they passed nodded to them, but didn’t stop. Allison still held on to his arm, leading him deeper inside the mountain. 

Stiles glanced back, suddenly terrified that Derek had abandoned him. 

He hadn’t. The man nodded at him, a gesture Stiles thought was meant to be reassuring. Then he smiled. Stiles nearly tripped over his own feet. His face grew hot.

He was sure he looked like an idiot. He didn’t blush pretty like some people, he just blotched out, like he’d contracted some painful and gross rash. But Jesus, the man’s face transformed when he smiled, every ounce of the monster disappearing without a trace. These smiles were nothing like the cold, predatory ones Stiles had gotten used to seeing in the Ring. Derek had dimples now. The man had actual dimples. It was confusing and unreal; which man was real and which one was a lie? Could a man be both? 

His face heated even more when he found Allison watching him.  
“We weren’t expecting Derek for some weeks yet,” she said.  
“It’s my fault,” he blurted out.  
“Ali,” Derek said from behind them, his voice low, “we’ll talk in a while. You might want to get Chris too.”

“Dee!!” a shout echoed off the mountain walls, “Dee-dee!!!”

A small white and yellow ball hurled past Stiles and knocked into Derek. He picked it up and tossed it into the air where it unfurled into a little girl with an ear-piercing squeal. He laughed at the squeal and tossed her again, the white layers of her dress unfolding like butterfly wings. The rumble of his laughter vibrated through Stiles, a minor earthquake shivering through his stomach. His chest tightened again, nearly unbearable this time. Who was this man? How was it possible that Stiles was seeing him for the first time now, days later?

“Mila,” Allison sounded exasperated, “I told you to stay put.”

She abandoned Stiles’s arm to reach out for the girl. The girl, no older than four, went to Allison gladly, sticking her little face in Allison’s neck. Her dark blonde curls looked hopelessly tangled and she had dirt smudged across one round cheek. Allison wiped at it with her hand and the girl whined in complaint.

“Stiles, this small terror is Mila,” she said, sounding apologetic.

He forced a shaky smile,  
“Hello Mila, nice to meet you.”  
She peeked at him from underneath Allison’s chin and smiled back. Then she turned her face away and hid again. 

“Derek,” came a quiet voice behind them, and Stiles jumped.  
“Chris,” Derek said carefully.

Chris was apparently a creeper because Stiles hadn’t even heard him coming, and there was definitely nothing wrong with his ears. The man’s eyes were the type of blue that passed through gray and turned into ice. As much as Stiles didn’t ordinarily dislike people before he had a chance to get to know them, he thought this man might be an exception to the rule. 

Still, there was something about him which exuded authority. Something in his posture, in the quiet tone of his voice.

“What happened?” he asked.  
“It’s a long story,” Derek said.

Chris glanced at Stiles but didn’t bother introducing himself. Stiles had a distinct feeling that the man had sized him up and dismissed him. 

Yup, the dislike was definitely mutual. 

“Ok,” Chris said, “I’ve got time.”  
“We need water. And food.”

Chris looked at Stiles again, a cool, assessing gaze.  
“Isaac, can you take Mila back to Kira?”  
“No,” the little girl wrapped her arms around Allison’s neck, “I wanna stay.”  
Stiles was startled to see the man smile fondly as he tugged on the lock of Mila’s hair,  
“Just for a short while. We’ll feed the bunnies afterwards. You can come in and pet them.”  
She tilted her head at him, as if considering whether this was a fair trade. Then she stretched her arms to Isaac. Isaac took her wordlessly. 

Chris was already walking away, Allison by his side. Derek and Stiles followed.

\-- 

The inside of the cave was surprisingly cool and pitch black. Everyone moved confidently though the darkness so Stiles tried to do the same. As a result he tripped over a rock and almost fell on his face. His swear echoed against the stone walls. Luckily, it wasn’t a large enough rock to break his toe, but it still hurt. 

Derek’s hand found his arm in the darkness and pulled him close.  
“Sorry,” he said, “I keep forgetting you’ve never been here.”

Stiles wanted to complain that it was a strange thing to forget. Instead, he pressed himself against Derek’s side.  
“I’m ready to sell my soul for a pair of boots,” he grumbled.

A lamp flared ahead of them and Stiles stopped. The walls and the ceiling of the cave gleamed with eerie emerald glow everywhere the light touched it.  
“What--“  
“Schistostega Pennata,” Allison said, settling down on a pile of blankets,  
“The Dragon’s Gold. It’s a moss.”

Stiles put his face close to the wall. It resembled a fern, shrank down about a hundred times.

“Did you grow it?” he asked, forgetting his decision not to ask questions.  
“No, it was already here when our people settled in the mountain. Water?”

She was holding out a full bottle and he glanced quickly at Derek before sitting down next to her. Chris had already handed a bottle to Derek, and Derek was drinking slowly, a few sips at a time. Smart. Stiles forced himself to do the same. He wanted to remind Derek that it was probably time to take another antibiotic and didn’t. Something about the man’s posture gave him an impression that this wasn’t a social visit.

Derek settled down on the ground with his saddle bags in front of him and started unloading them. First the lock box and the key, then the other random bags of pills he had tucked away places. Jars and jars of creams and ointments. The batteries and the books, more batteries, and then the numerous bottles of alcohol. Stiles was surprised that none of them had broken during the trip. Finally, he pulled out a package wrapped in dark cloth and tied with twine. He pushed it towards Allison.

“For Mila.”  
She took the package and put it in her lap.  
“What happened?” she asked softly. 

Derek glanced at Stiles, something complicated flickering across his face, then inhaled deeply as if about to dive under water,  
“I fucked up. I took something from the Third Ring that didn’t belong to me. By now, there’s probably a price on my head in all three.”

Allison looked down at the package, smoothing the cloth with her fingers. Stiles had a feeling that she’d known what he would say. 

Chris looked like a marble statue, his face expressionless.  
“What did you take?” he asked.  
“Stiles.”  
Chris’s gaze slid to Stiles and his mouth curved in distaste,  
“You took one of Gerard’s toys.”

It was not a question and Derek didn’t confirm it. Chris already knew. Allison knew. Stiles felt his face heat all over again, this time from the pure humiliation of it. So much for getting a fresh start somewhere. He wanted to feel angry, but instead, he just felt naked and exposed. 

“You ruined a decade of hard work and risked the lives of everyone here for one man.”  
Derek’s face tightened,  
“I did.”  
“Dad,” Allison said, a hint of warning in her voice.  
“I guess it’s too much to hope that you had a good reason for doing it?”  
“None you would understand,” Derek said coldly, “since you’ve never been out there.”  
“Derek,” Allison snapped.

Chris studied them both for a moment, then stood up and walked out.

Allison rubbed her eyes with both hands and made a sound in between a sigh and a growl. 

“I’m sorry,” Derek said, and he actually did sound sorry now.

She shook her head and absently caressed the cloth,  
“It doesn’t matter now, water under the bridge. Are you ok?”  
“I’m fine.”  
“He was shot,” Stiles blurted out.  
“Shot?” she looked from one to the other, her eyes wide, “When? Where?”

Derek glanced at Stiles quickly, his gaze startled,  
“It was nothing. The bullet went straight through. But I had to take some of the cephalosporin and there was only sixty to begin with--“  
“Never mind the fucking pills,” she said sternly, “Jesus, Derek, why didn’t you say something? Let me see it.”

She scooted closer and started patting at him, looking like a worried hen fussing over her chick. Derek squirmed out of her hands.  
“It’s fine. Stiles took care of it.”  
“Show me.”

Derek sighed and shrugged out of his jacket. He pulled the shirt off, wincing slightly as he did it. Allison unwrapped the dressing carefully, studied the wound for a moment, then glanced at Stiles.  
“You lanced this.”  
He nodded.  
“How bad was it?”  
He looked at the ground, not wanting to meet Derek’s eyes,  
“It was bad.”  
“But it’s fine now,” Derek said, fumbling for his shirt.  
Allison slapped it out of his hands,  
“Don’t be an idiot. It needs to be wrapped again. When did you take the last antibiotic?”  
He let her wrap the shoulder back up,  
“I don’t know. This morning?”

Allison shot a questioning glance at Stiles and Stiles nodded. 

“How many did you take so far?”  
Derek shrugged irritably,  
“I don’t know, five, six?”  
“Four,” Stiles said softly.  
“You’ll take another one now just to be safe,” Allison said.  
“I’m fine,” Derek growled.

Stiles jumped at the sound but Allison only tightened the bandage with more force than necessary, causing Derek to yelp.  
“Don’t yell at me,” she said, “You’ll take one more.”

Derek glared at her, then at Stiles. But when she passed him the pill, he took it. 

Then he stood up,  
“Well, this was fun but I’m tired. Stiles is tired. I think we’re gonna get some sleep.”  
“Wait,” she said quickly, “here, take this with you.”  
She tucked the two bottles of water in his saddle bags,  
“I had Nia bring some bread and cheese to your place as soon as Will saw you coming. It should be waiting for you when you get there. Is Stiles staying with you?”

She wasn’t looking at either one of them when she asked the question, but Stiles felt his face heat again. This was fucking torture. He’s gonna have to start telling people that he actually has a rash, so he doesn’t look like a fucking idiot every five minutes. He glanced at Derek and saw that Derek looked uncomfortable too.

“For now,” Derek said.  
“Good,” she said lightly, “I’ll know where to find you both. Stiles, when you’re rested, I’d like to show you around.”  
“Thank you,” he said, “I’d like that.”  
She handed Derek the saddle bags and he shouldered them easily.

She squeezed his forearm,  
“It’s good to have you back.”  
He smiled at her, but something in the smile looked almost painful,  
“It’s good to be back.”

\--

Derek led the way through the crevice, deeper and deeper, until Stiles wondered if it stretched the entire width of the mountain. The deeper in they went, the cooler the air grew. It was less populated too, the caves sparse and empty. The walls of the mountain were closer together, cutting off most of the light. 

There was nothing to distinguish Derek’s cave from the others; no cloth on the doorway, no potted plant in the front. Derek went in first and Stiles followed carefully, not knowing what to expect. A small, battery powered lamp flared to life and Stiles was almost disappointed to see no emerald moss growing. There was a large metal lock box against a wall, the top covered in folded up clothes. A small ledge sticking out of the rock which held half a dozen books. Another flat rock that seemed positioned to be used as a table, and on it someone had carefully laid out bread and cheese. Derek put the lamp next to the food. Piles of blankets littered the ground and collected in the corners and against the walls. To Stiles, it looked like the man used the cave as a giant bed which he crawled into only occasionally. Derek dropped the backpack and the saddle bags next to the doorway and sat down on one side of the table rock. Stiles did the same. They ate in silence. 

There was an odd sort of tension between them now. Stiles wanted to say something to break it but didn’t dare. He’d never once considered that Derek might be in trouble with his own people for taking Stiles out of the Ring. 

‘A decade of hard work ruined for one man,’ Chris had said. 

He wanted to ask about it, but Derek’s face looked like he would answer no questions. When they were done eating, Derek gathered up some blankets and made a pallet on the floor. Stiles did the same. Once they were both lying down, one on each side of the cave, Derek shut the light off.

\--

Derek woke up hours later, pleased that his internal clock was working again. He didn’t have to go outside to know that it was early morning, just before sunrise. When his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he glanced over at Stiles. The kid was just a tightly wrapped mound on the ground, his breaths deep and even. Without turning on the light, Derek grabbed some clothes from a pile, grabbed his backpack and snuck out of the cave. The thin swatch of the sky above him was pale indigo and turning lighter by the minute. He shoved the clothes in the backpack and started to climb. About twenty yards up, a ledge arched around the mountain wall, curving up towards the sky. He heard the water trickling long before he stepped off the ledge and made his way into another tunnel, leading deeper into the mountain. When he turned a lamp on, the green moss glowed in here too, reflecting off the pool of water. The pool was small, no more than ten feet wide and four feet deep. He stripped the clothes he’d been wearing for weeks and sunk gratefully into the cold water. Scrubbed himself furiously from head to toe, feeling like he was scraping off pounds of filth. Repeatedly dunked his head under, working the dirt and dust out of his hair. When he finally felt clean, he leaned back against a rock and closed his eyes. 

Home. He was finally home.

He shouldn’t have snapped at Chris. The two of them had always managed to get along with each other, even if it was just for appearances. And Allison. There wasn’t much in the world they wouldn’t do for Allison. But being stuck in the mountain had always been a sore point for Chris. Even though he had the brains and the skills to run their small community, they both knew that he would have been more suited to Derek’s type of work. Except that you can’t send an Argent to trick other Argents. And if he ever showed his face outside the mountain again, someone would put a bullet in it in a matter of minutes. Gerard didn’t tolerate betrayal from anyone, let alone his oldest son. 

No, Chris was stuck here for good, dealing with the daily irritations of running a village. 

Chris, the village elder. 

Derek smiled crookedly. Chris did it well; much better than Derek ever could, if he were ever willing to attempt it. And he’d definitely never been willing. To be fair, Allison did take on a great deal of the burden; Chris had never exactly been a people person. Still, had Chris been the one to find Stiles strapped down on the table, he would have spared him a glance of pity and put him out of his mind in a matter of moments. Chris would have gotten the job done, because that’s what Chris did. He never would have put the entire community in jeopardy for a stranger. 

Derek was the weak one. What a joke it all was. Each time he went out to the Rings, went through the combing of the villages, he hated it a little more. Hated himself a little more. Each time, the mask he donned fit a little easier over his skin, and each time he felt like a piece of him curled up and died. Chris might have never had a chance to go out there and do the same, but the terrible part of it was that the man would have been good at it. It ate at him that all those things Derek did, Chris could have done with one hand tied behind his back. Derek knew this. He never should have goaded the man with it. Because, as it turned out, Chris had been right not to trust him. 

He wondered if the others would blame him when they found out. He wondered what Boyd would say when he found out that he was now the only source allowed in and out of the Rings. Bobby would probably understand; the man had picked outriding for a reason. No one would say so out loud, but the old guy had no stomach for the shit that went on in the Rings. But what about Jackson and Lee? They both hated outriding, they both would have been more suited to the Rings had Derek not beaten them to the job. They’re gonna be pissed that he fucked it up. And how would Stiles take it all?

What was he supposed to do with the kid? He couldn’t have him sleeping in Derek’s cave. They’d grown too close in the last few days. Derek didn’t like the way his stomach flipped when Stiles smiled at him. He didn’t like the unexplainable urge to touch him whenever Stiles was out of reach. 

Some urges he could deal with easily. He’d said no to sex countless times over the years. The kid had been hurt and mistreated and any advance from Derek would probably do more damage. That was the easy part.

The other stuff was harder to define or ignore. How good it felt to have the kid on the back of the bike, his arms wrapped tightly around Derek’s waist. The feel of Stiles’s hand gripping his own, Stiles huddling against him, the kid’s fingers brushing his shoulder, wrapping the bandage, passing him bread and cheese, lifting his head up and pressing a water bottle to his lips. He thought about riding out tomorrow and never seeing him again, and it hurt. It hurt the same way that never seeing Ali again would hurt. 

He got out of the pool and shook himself off. He wrapped his shoulder back up, and put on a clean pair of pants and a shirt. Scrubbed the water out of his hair. Then he gathered his backpack and made his way back down the mountain. Instead of heading back to the cave, he followed the crevice deeper in, ducked into another tunnel and eventually came out into another opening, a crevice that was almost bowl shaped, the jagged rocks above him filtering the light. Carefully constructed piles of rocks lay perfectly spaced out across the crevice floor. The one at the very center already had a visitor. 

Ali sat in front of it cross legged, a pile of wisteria flowers resting on the top of the mound. His throat tightened at the sight. Paige had loved the damn vine. She’d spent months guiding the little shoots up the mountain walls. Everyone had argued against it; a waste of soil and water for a plant that did nothing but flower once in a while. But Paige had called it a survivor. She’d gotten her way too, like she always did. No one had suggested getting rid of them once she was gone. 

There was so little of her left now. In the beginning, every tunnel and cave had carried the echoes of her laughter. Every plant that grew tall and strong had reflected her joy, her strength, every leaf had been the green of her eyes. Derek had volunteered for the Rings just to get away. So he didn’t spend hours sitting on the mountain top, in silence, waiting for Paige’s arms to reach around him. So he would stop seeing Paige in every corner, by every pool, hearing her voice in the whisper of water trickling down the cave walls, in the wind moving across the sand. So he would stop feeling like he was slowly going insane. 

Each time he returned home, there was less of Paige to be found. What if one day she faded completely? If he could no longer recall her face, her smile, the feel of her cheek against Derek’s chest? 

“I thought you’d be by at some point this morning,” Ali said without turning around.  
“I should have been here last night,” he said.

For the first time, Derek had not come directly here, with the dust and dirt of the desert still coating him from head to toe. For the first time, he’d decided that something else was more important. 

“Nonsense,” she said, “the kid looked ready to faint. He needed you more.”  
“He’s not a kid,” he heard himself say, and paused.

He wasn’t. Stiles wasn’t a kid, even though Derek had been so careful to call him one, in his own head, every single time. He’d somehow hoped that if he could see Stiles as a child, as someone young and defenseless, someone who needed to be protected, maybe this mess of fucking urges and feelings would somehow transform into something he knew how to deal with. It obviously wasn’t fucking working. Derek might have a handful of years on him, but Stiles was definitely not a child, and trying to look at him as one hadn’t done Derek a damn bit good. Actually, it was making him feel even worse.

“He is, compared to you.”

Her words knocked the breath out of him and he dug his nails into his palms. 

She didn’t meant those words to hurt. He knew that.

But it sounded like she was saying that Stiles was vulnerable. That he was alone in the world. And that Derek was in a perfect position to take advantage of him. 

He settled on the ground next to her, feeling stiff and wrong-footed.  
“What are you trying to say?”  
She tilted her head at him, her neck so frail these days, like a stalk of a flower,  
“I’m saying he’s young. And he looks at you like you hung the moon in the sky.”  
He shifted,  
“He looks at me like I might turn into Gerard at any moment.”  
“You’re wrong.”

He was about to contradict her again, but she was already moving on,  
“Where did he come from?”  
“One of the villages outside the Ring. His father was a Healer. I guess they had a pretty good handle on their herbs because someone sold them out. They killed his father and took Stiles to Gerard.”  
“How bad was it?”  
“It was bad. I couldn’t just-- I would’ve just walked away otherwise. I never would’ve risked everything if there was any other way--“

She scooted closer and pressed her head against his upper arm, her fingers slipping around his elbow, as if to hold him up through whatever doubts he might have.  
“Don’t be stupid,” she said, “You did the right thing.”  
“There was no right thing,” he said, frustration coloring his voice, “I lost access to the Rings, you know what that means. But it was either that, or leave him there, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”  
Her fingers tightened, “Of course you couldn’t.”

Sun began creeping over the jagged rocks above them. Eventually, it would shine down on the middle of the crevice, illuminating Paige’s resting place. It was the only spot that saw any sun during the day, and Derek had insisted on placing her where the sun would shine on her at least for a little while. No one had loved the sun more than Paige. She’d soaked up every ray like she was made to run the deserts, dark as a gipsy, never a blister on her perfectly smooth skin. She’d never had the sunburn, never had the cough, never had the headaches. His Paige was a true desert child, a mountain child, a survivor, like the wisteria. 

Except that she’d died anyway.

“He looks a little like her, your Stiles.”

Derek was saved from having to respond by an uncomfortable prickle on the back of his neck.  
“Collin. You can come out now.”

A skinny boy appeared from behind the rocks on the far side of the crevice, his face sullen,  
“How did you know? I didn’t make a sound.”  
“I can feel when someone’s staring at me. What are you doing here?”  
“I was visiting.”

He’d grown taller but not in a pretty way. It was that awkward stage most boys went through where they were just knees and elbows. His dark hair was short and messy like Derek’s, his eyes too large for his face. He resembled a starving crow.

“You look like a dead branch,” Derek said, “what are they feeding you?”  
“I eat plenty,” the boy said, sounding offended, “it just doesn’t do anything.”  
“He does,” Ali volunteered, “Pretty soon, Jackson and Lee are gonna have to make special runs just to feed him.”

“Mom says you brought someone with you. Who is it? Someone from the Rings?”  
Derek sighed,  
“Yes. Someone from the Rings.”  
“Where is he?”  
“He’s sleeping. I’m sure you’ll get to meet him later. I’ve gotta go track down Chris.”  
The boy grimaced,  
“Good luck. He’s in a nasty mood this morning.”  
Derek glanced at Ali, but she only shrugged, volunteering no information. 

“He was here earlier,” Collin said, jerking his head towards the far side of the crevice.

In the corner, the piles of rocks were worn smooth from age, discolored from the years of bitter rains. A pile of wisteria rested there too, and Derek couldn’t help but wonder why was it that him and Chris could never find a common ground, when they had so much loss between them. Maybe he simply resented the fact that Chris had only lost the woman he loved, while Derek had lost everyone. Except that Derek could never find it in himself to resent Ali for the same reasons. For all they had different fathers, it had never occurred to him that her grief over losing Talia could be less than his own. Ali was his family, his only family. She might be Chris’s daughter, but she’d also been Talia’s little girl, her unplanned child, the daughter his mother had always wanted.

Maybe it was a simple fact that Chris was, and always would be, an Argent. And Derek’s mom was dead, no longer there to vouch for the man she brought from the Rings to replace Derek’s long gone father.

No. He wasn’t gonna think about that. 

Talia was gone. Derek hadn’t needed another father figure, had never wanted one. And Chris, for all his early efforts, had been hopelessly bad at it. They’d both tried to get along, and the failures had piled up in between them over the years until they could barely tolerate each other. It had been a bitter sort of relief, to stop trying. Rehashing it all just made Derek ache more, bringing back the pain of losses he could do nothing about.

He got up and offered Ali his hand. She took it, her fingers light, fragile, as if the bones inside of them were hollow. 

He wondered if Ali could still remember Talia’s face clearly, or if it had started fading the way his own memories of Page were staring to fade. 

“I’ll come with you,” Collin volunteered.  
“What are you gonna do? Protect me from Chris?”  
“Do I look suicidal? No. You can have Chris all to yourself. I promised Ali I would watch Mila while she took your new guy around.”  
“Why you? Where’s Kira?”

Collin shrugged nonchalantly but his face betrayed him, faint color creeping up his neck. Derek resisted the urge to chuckle. So it wasn’t just all knees and elbows. He wondered if Kira had any clue that she had an admirer. 

He clasped the boy’s bony shoulder,  
“Well, I’m sure she appreciates a break. Let’s get a move on before the breakfast is all gone.”

\--

They found Kira and Mila at the rabbit pen with a group of other children Mila’s age. Two of the children had cloths tied around their mouths, their faces drawn and pale. One of them saw Derek approach and waved furiously, his eyes lighting up. Derek smiled back, even though the smile felt painful on his face. Ty boy had been a healthy toddler before Derek took off for the Rings. They had been sure that the worst was over. It turns out they were wrong. 

“Dee-dee,” the boy was still waving even as Derek stood in front of him.  
He reached down and the boy climbed up into his arms like a monkey, wheezing painfully.  
“Look,” he said, “a white one!”

Sure enough, there was a white rabbit in the pen.

“Wow,” Derek said, “did you get to pet him?”  
“Yeah! He’s soft.”  
“I bet.”

Mila yanked on his pants,  
“Dee, guess what? We won’t eat that one. He’s too pretty. Right Ali? Right?”  
“Right,” Ali said, sounding like she’s repeated the same thing dozens of times already.

Collin stood back looking somewhat uneasy.  
“Um, Allison? I thought you said I was gonna be watching Mila.”  
“I know, but I need Kira to help me do a few things first. And there’s a meeting going on so there’s no one else to watch them. It’ll just be for a short while.”

Derek almost chuckled at Collin’s expression. Then he remembered that there was no earthly reason to have a meeting except for him. 

He glanced at Ali, and she shrugged again.

\--

It felt like walking into the Ring for the first time. He had to remind himself that these people were his friends, that their health and the health of their children had depended on him, and that he’d let them down. They had a right to ask him why, and they had a right to be angry. Still, he wished that Ali had come with him. 

They had all settled in a loose circle, some of them still eating breakfast. Derek’s stomach growled and he told it to shut up. Eating would come later, if he still had any appetite left. 

This was the unofficial council, the dozen or so people who made everything run more smoothly. Nia, settled in the corner with her sowing kit, her shoulder length hair hiding her face as she bent over a pair of Will’s pants. Rose, Ellen’s mother, her steel gray braid lay coiled in her lap, her face ancient and dark. Peter, Derek’s uncle, who looked like he was napping against the stone wall, but was probably listening to everyone and everything that went on around him. Rick and Anita, still newly married, passing a piece of bread back and forth and whispering among themselves. Where Rick was dark, tall and brooding, she was honey, sun bleached, and round all over. Isaac, looking resentful just like he always did whenever he was asked to come aboveground. Ellen, Collin’s mother, sitting next to Chris. Her blonde hair pulled back tightly, her expression cool and collected. Derek was glad to see her. When Allison wasn’t around, it was Ellen who balanced Chris. Someone had to. 

On the other side of Chris was Cole, who always fidgeted when someone pulled him away from his work. While Isaac had been the one to come up with the idea for the mirrors, Cole had been the one who had figured out how to put them up. A handful of years older than Derek, he was the community handyman, that one person everyone called when they needed something fixed. His wife, Lena, sat next to him, their baby girl Maya cradled in her arms. Maya was still a healthy baby, but for how long? 

The last person caught Derek by surprise. Bobby got up to grab his hand and pull him into a hug, and Derek grinned, ridiculously pleased to see the man. If he couldn’t have Ali, Bobby was the next best thing.  
“When did you get in? No one told me you were here.”  
When Bobby pulled away his gray eyes were serious, but he still gripped Derek’s hand tightly.  
“Last night. Met up with a couple outriders from the First the day before.”  
He didn’t have to say more, the look on his face explained everything.

“Ok,” Chris said loudly, “Derek is here. Let’s get started.”

Bobby let go of him and went back to his seat next to Cole. Now Derek had eleven pairs of eyes focused on him and no one standing by his side. He straightened up, using all of his six feet and more. What’s done is done; he just had to get through this.

“Bobby rode in last night,” Chris said, looking at everyone but Derek, “he’s got some news on the situation. Bobby?”

Bobby opened his mouth, and Ellen cut off whatever he was going to say,  
“Some of us don’t know what the situation is. I, for one, have been up to my elbows in goat shit since yesterday morning. Maybe you wanna tell us why we’re all here first?”

Derek bit the inside of his mouth to keep himself from smiling.

Chris bared his teeth,  
“Sure. When Derek was in the Third Ring, he stole one of Gerard’s playthings, pretty much destroying all of the connections we had through him. I believe that about sums it up?”

It turned out that Ellen was right; not many people knew what had happened. Peter was sitting up, his frown making the hair on Derek’s neck stand up. Rick and Anita gaped at him. Nia’s mouth tightened but she never even looked up from her sowing. Out of all of them, Ellen, who had claimed to have no knowledge of the situation, looked the least surprised.

Chris cleared his throat, “Bobby?”

Bobby rubbed his chin and didn’t bother standing up,  
“I came across the outriders from the First on my way back here. Gerard had sent word as soon as Derek left the town. I guess two of his guards were shot down in the outer perimeter. Derek is going for 100 mL of Morphine alive. Half of that for his body. The man he took is to be shot on sight. His dead body is worth much less though, one guy said 20 mL, another 10 mL, no one is sure.”

Blinding fury spiked through Derek. Shot on sight? That fat, balding fuck. Derek would tear him in half the next time he saw him. He would love to see Gerard branding anyone as a traitor with half of his jaw missing.

“You killed two of Gerard’s men?” Rose asked, his voice dripping in disapproval.

He was tempted to confirm it. It didn’t matter who shot them, they were dead anyway. But Stiles was probably with Ali right now, telling her something completely different. It wouldn’t do to get caught in a lie.

“No. They shot me. Stiles shot them.”  
“Stiles is the guy you took from Gerard?” Cole asked.  
Derek nodded.  
“Why?”

Derek started at him for a few moments, then blurted out the truth,  
“He asked me to kill him. Stiles. He asked me to kill him instead of handing him back to Gerard. I couldn’t do it.”

His answer was greeted by complete silence. Nia’s hand had paused only for a second, then she was sowing again, her eyes never leaving her work. Rose was studying him as if she’d never seen him before. He fought the urge to shift his feet. Bobby busied himself by picking at his ripped sleeve. Cole looked sorry that he’d asked the question in the first place, and Isaac... Isaac had yet to even look up. The man could be asleep for all Derek knew. 

“So?” Peter cut in, “You couldn’t do it. You still could’ve handed him back to Gerard.”  
“No, I couldn’t have. I’ve done things that would make your goddamned hair stand up. I’ve sold my soul over a million times over. I couldn’t leave him to be tortured. I don’t really understand why we’re even discussing this. It’s not the first time I’ve had to bring someone in.”  
“You volunteered for this and you’ve never expressed any desire to stop doing it,” Chris said coldly, “No one has a problem with what you’ve done. It’s the way you did it that’s going to affect everyone. Boyd is in the Second Ring right now. You put him in danger, along with everyone here. What if you’d been followed?”  
“I wasn’t,” Derek said through gritted teeth.  
“You brought a man here who was labeled a traitor, who’s to be shot on sight.”  
“Are we turning people away now because they might be a liability?” Ellen inquired, her voice just as cold as Chris’s,  
“Because I distinctly remember a saying about glass houses and rocks that applies to this situation.”  
“No,” Chris backtracked, “that’s not--“  
“Then maybe we should stay on the subject,” she cut him off, “Derek. Was there any other way to get the man out of the Ring?”

He told himself to breathe and consider the question.

“No,” he said finally, “I tried that first. Gerard wasn’t going to let him go for any price.”  
“Why? Why would one man be so valuable?”  
“Stiles’s father was a Healer in the nearby village. A good one too, because Gerard sent his men out to kill him. Stiles saw it happen and tried to take on half a dozen enforcers with a steel pipe. Took out three of them too. Two of them were Gerard’s son and daughter.”

He was pleased to see that both Rose and Bobby looked thoughtful.  
“Stupid,” Chris snorted.

Even though Derek had been thinking exactly the same thing, he found himself defending Stiles,  
“They killed his father. I would have done the same if someone were to hurt Allison, whether it was a half a dozen enforcers or a hundred. And so would you.” 

That shut the man up. 

Nia was gathering her stuff up while Derek spoke. She placed it into a canvas bag and stood up to leave.

“Nia,” Ellen said, “do you have anything to add before you go?”

She paused and looked at Derek for the first time. His stomach twisted.  
“I’m not angry,” she said, but her voice shook, betraying her, “I might not be able to understand how hard it is, to do what you do. But my only son is choking on his own blood night after night. I would trade my life, and Will’s, if it would cure Ty.”

Derek felt like she’d slapped him. This is what he’d been afraid of.

“Derek could spend the next ten years going into the Rings and it wouldn’t make a difference to your Ty,” Isaac said suddenly.

All eyes turned to him.

He glared at them, “What? It’s true. No one’s trading Isoniazid or rifampin, are they? Ethambutol? Seen any of that, Derek? Pyrazinamide? No? Didn’t fucking think so. Maybe we should stop pretending that kids lives depend on the medicine Derek brings in. The most those old antibiotics have done so far is keep them alive a little longer.”

Nia rushed out without a word. Peter leaned forward, his angry gaze now focused on Isaac.  
“Derek put us all in danger.”

Isaac leaned forward too, as if to make sure Peter heard him clearly,  
“Did I misunderstand our purpose here? Because I’ve been working to save those that can be saved. Derek too. Isn’t that what we’re all supposed to be doing? Instead, we’re sitting here and arguing over the worth of one man’s life.”  
He looked around the circle,  
“Have we actually come to the point where we’re deciding if one life is more valuable than another? Because I’d love to see how those council meetings play out. Who would like be the one to decide who lives and who dies? Peter? That something that appeals to you? Cole, how about you?”

Peter stood up and followed Nia out. Cole seemed startled by being called out.

Ellen turned to Chris,  
“Well, that about sums up everything I wanted to say. Do you have anything else to add? Because I have work that’s waiting.”  
Chris rubbed his palms on the top of his jeans, looking uncomfortable for the first time,  
“No. Anyone else have anything else to say?”  
“Bring the boy by later,” Rose said, “I wanna meet him.”

Derek took a deep, shaky breath,  
“He’s not a boy.”  
“I still clearly remember paddling your behind not so long ago. He’s a boy if I say he is.”  
“Anyone else?” Chris cut in.

Isaac was already walking out. Rick and Anita shook their heads. Lena was handing Maya over to Cole carefully; neither one of them looked inclined to speak. 

“Alright then, I guess this meeting is over.”

Bobby got up and went to join Derek,  
“Come on, walk with me. Tell me what happened.”

\--

They said nothing for a while. The mornings were a busy time; people passed them every few minutes, stopping to talk to Bobby before moving on. He’d been gone a while, a few months longer than Derek. Jackson and Lee were the ones who made the short trips, a few weeks at the most, but the two of them scavenged all the big stuff. Canned goods, bags of flour, cloth, iron, all the things that would be impossible for one man to carry through the desert without getting shot. Bobby found rarities; flashlights, lighter fluid, bleach, soap. Most of his finds could fit in his saddle bags.

Once they abandoned the crevice and were heading down the mountain, Derek relaxed.  
“What did you bring this time?” he asked.  
“Echinacea. No taller than my finger and a little worse for wear from spending weeks in my bag. The thing was thirsty too, almost ran out of water trying to keep it alive.”  
“I hope this one makes it.”  
“Me too. It looks better than the last two I brought.”  
“Did Isaac show you the Goldenseal?”  
Bobby smiled fondly,  
“Yup. It’s looking good. Ellen’s getting the planters ready for more. If the Echinacea survives we’ll be all set for a while. Gonna run Boyd out of business.”

The wind picked up, pushing the dust against the mountain. Derek grabbed his bandana out of his pocket and tied it around his mouth and nose. Bobby didn’t bother. He’d often joked that his body had gotten used to filtering the dust.

“When are you heading out again?”  
Bobby rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly looking tired,  
“I don’t know. A while.”  
“Feel like taking a break?”  
Bobby threw him a sideways glance,  
“Why?”  
Derek shrugged,  
“Can’t go back to the Rings. I just figured, maybe I can make myself useful somewhere else.”  
“You in a hurry to get out of here? You just got back.”

Derek didn’t answer right away, using a steep stretch to get ahead of Bobby and think of the best way to answer that question.

“I don’t exactly feel welcome right now. Maybe it would be best if I went away for a while until things quieted down.”

He could finally see the glint of chrome in the distance. Poor bike. He’d never left it sitting this long after a storm. He would have to find the time to go over it from top to bottom; if any of that dust made it into the gas tank, he’d be stuck around here for a lot longer than a few weeks.

“Have you talked to Chris about this?”  
Derek snorted,  
“I don’t need his permission to ride out.”  
“No one is riding out until Boyd comes back.”  
Derek stopped and turned to the man,  
“What do you mean, no one is riding out?”

Bobby studied him for a moment as if wondering if Derek had lost his mind. 

Then he sat down slowly in between some rocks and stretched out his legs,  
“My legs hurt. If that’s your bike down there, you’re gonna have to go the rest of the way by yourself. I’m too fucking tired to go hopping back up the mountain.”

Derek stayed on his feet and Bobby tilted his head up at him,  
“Are you gonna make me crane my neck?”  
“Why are we waiting for Boyd to come back?”  
“Sit, for fuck’s sake.”  
Derek sat down, feeling angry again,  
“Was that Chris’s idea? No one riding out until Boyd comes back? Because I’ve put us all at risk? Is that it?”  
“No. It was my idea.”

Derek’s anger drained away as quickly as it came.  
“Why?”  
“Well, let’s see. I came across two outriders from the First less than five miles away from here. Within the spitting distance of the goddamned mountain Derek, do you even realize how fucking close that is? The fact that it never occurred to them to search closer is a miracle. And you wanna ride out?”

Tightly controlled anger was starting to make its way into Bobby’s tone,  
“What’s the matter with you, huh? Being reckless is one thing. We’re all reckless; if we weren’t, none of us would be capable of doing this shit. But I’ve never known you to be fucking stupid.”

Derek felt his face heat up. He looked away, studying the empty desert stretching out below them.  
“I just wanna get out of here.”  
“Why? Because people are pissed off? I’ve never known you to be a coward either but that’s what you’re sounding like right now. You made a fucking decision; now it’s time to stand by it. Not run away.”  
“I don’t fucking care what they think,” he snapped back, “and I’m not trying to run away. I just wanna be useful instead of sitting around here like a fucking lump for weeks.”  
“Ha! You mean sitting around like Chris? If you ask me, it won’t hurt to walk around in his shoes for a while.”

Derek shifted,  
“I need to go check on the bike.”  
“Sit your ass down. There’s no reason to get your panties in a bunch. We need to talk.”  
“About what?”  
“Moving out of this fucking mountain and away from the Rings. Moving on.”

Derek groaned,  
“Not that again.”  
“Yes, that again,” Bobby leaned forward, “It’s time. They’re expanding, the Rings. You’ve seen it yourself. Their outriders are coming closer every day, riding out further, clashing with the communities in the East. We should be by the ocean, and not West but East, where shit is growing again.”  
“Pines and sand grass,” Derek scoffed.  
“And echinacea,” Bobby added, “and Goldenseal, and feverfew. Growing on its own, without the controlled environment we’re wasting so many goddamned resources on.”  
“You’ve seen it?”  
“Do you think it takes months to comb through the desert? Of course I’ve seen it.”  
“I thought you and Chris had agreed to stay out of the East.”  
“Are you gonna tattle on me?”

Derek rubbed his eyes until colors exploded behind his eyelids. 

Didn’t Bobby understand that this was exactly why Derek wanted to get away? He didn’t want to take sides and make decisions. He didn’t want people coming to him with their ideas and problems. That’s what Chris and Ali were good at.

“Of course not,” he said, “but if you wanna convince him to move everyone out of here, you’re gonna have to tell him.”  
Bobby rubbed at a piece of dirt stuck to his boot,  
“Chris wouldn’t care if East was flooded in bread and honey. There’s only one thing that would convince him to move.”  
“Allison.”

Bobby studied him carefully.

Derek felt a beginning of a headache,  
“Then go to Allison. What’s this have to do with me?”  
Bobby leaned back, lines of frustration forming around his mouth.  
“And what do you think is holding Allison here, huh? The sunshine? The view? What about Isaac? You think Isaac is so attached to his family’s graves that he never considered leaving? Tell me Derek, honestly, have you ever stuck around long enough to talk to either one of them about this?”  
“No, we’ve never fucking talked about it. Are you saying they’ve never considered it because of me? That I’m holding everyone here? Because that’s a big load of shit to swallow.”  
“Is it? How much do you really care about people here? I imagine you’re somewhat fond of Ellen, Collin, and some of the others, but I bet you could take them or leave them. You come home for Allison, Mila, and this goddamned mountain. To sit and mourn in front of a pile of rocks. To make sure your precious vines are growing. To beat yourself up over what could have been. This isn’t your home, it’s your own personal purgatory. You care more about this mountain, that damn pile of rocks, then you care about ninety percent of people forced to live here day in and day out.”

Derek got up,  
“I gotta go check on the bike.”  
“Paige wouldn’t have wanted this,” Bobby said and Derek stopped, the words hitting him somewhere in the middle of his back, pain traveling outward.  
“You spending your life alone, riding through the desert, risking your life for so little. She wouldn’t have wanted this for you.”

“Paige is dead. It doesn’t matter what she would have wanted,” Derek said roughly, without turning around, “If you decided to take a break, let me know. I’ll ride out in your place when Boyd comes back.”


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles studied the four legged creature with apprehension.

“You can come closer,” Allison said, “they don’t mind.”  
“That’s ok,” Stiles said quickly, “I’m fine right here.”

He’d never seen a goat in his life. Sure, he knew what they were supposed to look like, but his dad had told him that the goats and cows had died out after the world burned. Yet here two of them stood, staring at him with their big, watery eyes. He didn’t like them. The only animals he’s seen so far that were half as tall as he was, were the mountain lions. And you didn’t fuck with those. He wasn’t gonna fuck with the goats either, no matter how gentle Allison said they were.

One of them let out a dull, braying call and Stiles took a step back. He could live without milk and cheese, thank you very much. He had so far.

Allison moved away from the little fence,  
“Ellen takes care of them. Have you met Ellen?”  
“I haven’t met anyone yet. Except for you and Chris.”  
“You will. It’s kind of hard to get away from everyone, the crevice is only so big. Derek spends a lot of time either on top of the mountain or outside of it.”

Derek had been gone when Stiles woke up. There had been a few brief moments of panic when Stiles was sure that the man had abandoned him. That he’d just taken off somewhere in the night. Then he’d seen the saddle bags. Even though the backpack was missing, he was sure that the man wouldn’t have gone far without his saddle bags. Still, he’d sat in the cave for a long time, feeling alone and out of place. Why didn’t Derek wake him up before leaving? Stiles didn’t know anyone here. For some reason, reminding himself that he was lucky to be alive just wasn’t working any more. Something about waking up alone and Derek being gone had made him feel sorry for himself.

Then Allison had shown up with a change of clothes and a pair of boots, offering to show him around. So far Stiles had seen most of the plants, a place where the spare clothing was kept, altered and distributed, the cave that served as their main food storage, and the goats. The plants were neat, although he expected to see more herbs that would be useful in healing. Those seemed to be rare; either the people here had just as hard of a time growing them as Stiles and his dad had, or they kept them stashed away somewhere. Stiles didn’t ask. It seemed like an impolite sort of question and it was none of his business anyway. Their food stores were more than impressive. Sacks of flour, canned meat, canned vegetables, canned fruits, bags of rice and beans, more dry goods than Stiles had seen all together in his entire lifetime. It made him hungry just looking at it. Afterwards they stopped at Allison’s cave where she produced a hunk of bread that Stiles got to gnaw on as they headed to the goat pen. Now he saw the goats too and he could have done without it. And still no Derek anywhere.

“C’mon, I’ll show you what Isaac does.”  
“The genius?” Stiles said before he could stop himself and Allison chuckled.  
“Derek really needs to stop saying that. It puffs Isaac up so much I’m surprised he can even pass through the tunnels afterwards.”

They made their way down the crevice and now Stiles could see people going about their business. Allison waved to a few of them but didn’t stop, instead pulling him towards a dark crack in the side of the mountain wall. It was about five feet wide at the bottom and grew narrower as it went up. Stiles would have never looked at it twice, but Allison stepped inside of it, her grip on his wrist forcing him to follow.

“The floor slopes,” she said as his foot slipped, nearly tripping them both.  
There was no light and she seemed to not need any. What was it with these people? Did they all see in the dark like cats?

“It’s a tight fit so stay right behind me.”  
She didn’t have to tell him that twice. He kept blinking in the pitch black, expecting his eyes to adjust. But there was nothing to adjust to. The floor sloped gently as they went along but the space around them stayed tight. If Stiles didn’t keep his elbows in, they brushed against the walls. Twice, he was sure that another tunnel mouth gaped to the left. He was almost tempted to stretch his hand out in that direction and find out if he would encounter stone or open air. He didn’t though. He was creeped out enough without knowing.

The tunnel seemed to go on forever, until he was sure they must be in the very bowels of the mountain. He was starting to feel disoriented and slightly claustrophobic when a faint glow of light appeared ahead of them.  
“There,” she said, “it looks like he’s working on something.”

In here? How could anyone work in here? Stiles would go insane trapped underground like this.

“Isaac,” she called out, “can we come in?”

Now Stiles could see the light coming through some kind of a filter. He stepped a little closer and put his hand out. It was a cloth, black and thick, almost oily under his hand, blocking the end of the tunnel. It gave under his fingers slightly and Allison slapped his hand out of the way.  
“Isaac?”  
“What do you want?”

Stiles took a step back. The guy sounded angry.  
“Maybe we should go,” he whispered to Allison.  
She shook her head in the gloom,  
“We’re coming in, ready or not!”

Something fell and Isaac let out a string of curses, some of which Stiles had never heard before. Allison moved the cloth aside and the light hit Stiles with force. His eyes watered. He blinked a few times, trying to adjust to so much light after the pitch black.

“Well?” Isaac snapped, “Get inside and close the fucking curtain, you’re letting the dust in!”

Allison yanked on Stiles’s arm and he stumbled forward, still trying to see. He rubbed his eyes furiously, feeling like an idiot.

“How did the meeting go?” he heard Allison ask.  
“How do you think it went?” Isaac countered.  
“Where is Derek?”  
“How the hell should I know?”

Stiles wiped the moisture out of his eyes. Lights. Dozens of battery powered lamps illuminating even the furthest corner of the cave. It was cool, but a different kind of cool, nothing like the dry cold of the desert at night. The air was almost damp and surprisingly heavy. Steel tables glowed in the light, their tops covered in bottles, vials, jars, and many other things Stiles could not put a name to. Did someone carry all those things down here in the pitch black? There was a small set of scales on one of the tables; Stiles had never seen one although he knew what they were. Three battery operated burners sat next to the scales. No wonder Derek had been carrying so many batteries if most of Isaac’s workspace is being powered by them. Thick white plastic covered the cave walls. Steel lock boxes like the one Derek had were strewn all over the place. Small boxes made from uneven plates of glass held plants.

These were the plants Stiles had expected to see.

A tiny, green shoot caught his eye.  
“Holy crap,” he said, “is that Echinacea?”  
They both turned to look at him like he’d just grown another head.  
“What?” he said.

“You’ve seen it before?” Allison asked carefully.  
“Seen it? The plant?”  
She raised her eyebrows as if he were being intentionally dense. He supposed he probably sounded like an idiot.

“No,” he said quickly, “never saw the actual thing, but my dad had a drawing of it, in a notebook. I was supposed to keep an eye out for it and a couple of others.”  
Her and Isaac glanced at each other.

“Do you know how to keep it alive?” Allison asked.  
Stiles blinked at her,  
“Um, yeah. There’s nothing to it. They like partial shade and don’t need a lot of water. Dad kept saying some of them should have survived but we couldn’t find any.”  
“What about the soil?”  
“Ah, normal pH, between 6 and 8, although they don’t mind clay soil either.”  
“I told you,” Isaac said, and Allison looked like she would stick her tongue out at him.  
“Isaac’s still puffed up over figuring out how to make penicillin,” she said.

Stiles had already moved on to study the vast amounts of feverfew blossoming in the glass cages. It looked like Isaac had created the perfect growing conditions for them; they thrived under the full light. How he would have loved to be able to grow so many back home. Most of the headaches could have been easily eliminated.

“The spores are easy to grow,” he said without thinking,  
“It’s the media that’s hard.”  
“44.0 grams lactose monohydrate, 25.0 grams cornstarch, 3.0 grams sodium nitrate, 0.25 grams magnesium sulfate, 0.50 grams potassium phosphate mono, 2.75 grams glucose monohydrate, 0.044 grams zinc sulfate, and 0.044 grams manganese sulfate dissolved in 500mL of cold water,” Isaac rattled off, “and, of course, hydrochloric acid to adjust the pH between 5 and 5.5.”

Stiles straightened up, the feverfew forgotten.  
“Wow,” he said, “have you tested it?”  
“Not yet,” Isaac said, sounding human for the first time,  
“Haven’t had to. Luckily, there’s been just enough of penicillin going around lately. It’s ethambutol we really need.”  
“But ethambutol might not do anything at all. Even in viral infections it’s barely effective by itself, and the cough isn’t viral.”  
Isaac only shrugged,  
“We have nothing else to go on. Even a possibility is better than what we have now.”

Stiles looked around the cave again. Every instinct screamed that he should volunteer to help. Isaac obviously knew what he was doing; he could learn a great deal from the man and probably teach him a few things too. Once upon a time, having to crawl though the bowels of the mountain in pitch black would have just made him more determined. Once upon a time, his focus would have been on healing and nothing else. Instead, a part of him stubbornly insisted that Isaac was wasting his time. Hundreds of kids would die before the cure was invented. Even then, what were they saving them for? A world where men like Gerard ruled? Where men like his dad were shot like dogs and no one even raised an alarm? What was the point?

“We’ll leave you to your work,” Allison said to Isaac carefully, as if she could read Stiles’s mind and was determined to put a stop to whatever he might say.

Isaac only nodded.

\--

They paused outside the tunnel.

“I’m not sure where to take you next. You should really meet a few people. I’m surprised Rose hasn’t come looking for you already.”  
“Who’s Rose?”  
“She’s sort of the village grandmother. Likes to bully everyone. And she’s so old that no one knows how to stop it. Oh, I know what I’ll show you next! You’re gonna love this. Can you climb?”  
“Climb?”  
“Yeah, you know, up a mountain.”  
Stiles looked up and his stomach dropped,  
“Uh...”  
“Never mind, I’ll let Derek show you that one. There’s one down here but it might be crowded. Come on.”

She pulled on his shirt again and he had no choice but to follow.

A crowd of children ran by them, a dark-haired girl in their midst. Stiles caught a flash of her sleek hair, wide mouth and a whole lot of white teeth, then the group was already behind them. A throaty laugh followed by a chorus of childish giggles drifted back to them.  
“Kira,” Allison said, without stopping, “She takes care of the kids. You’ll meet her tonight I think.”  
“What’s tonight?” Stiles asked, feeling slight panic.

She didn’t answer, pulling him through a low tunnel and into a different opening, this one mostly enclosed and only a little larger than the caves he’s seen so far. A pool of water sat in the middle of it, two people washing up at its edge. Two naked people.

“Oh,” Stiles said and looked down at the ground, feeling his face flame up.  
“Water,” Allison said, oblivious to his discomfort, “Isn’t it neat?”  
“Ah, yes. Neat.”  
“Do you wanna bathe?”  
“Not right now.”  
“Why not? No one minds, we all bathe together. If we took turns, with so many of us here, people would end up waiting for weeks. Hey, Ethan! Have you met Stiles?”

Stiles wanted to die. He wished he could just disappear into thin air.

A pair of bare feet moved into his field of vision.  
“Hi Stiles. Nice to meet you.”

Stiles looked up to see a stretched out hand and a naked man attached to it. A completely naked, wet man. Stiles opened his mouth and closed it immediately. Face. He should be looking at the man’s face. What was his name? Allison had just said it.

He grasped the wet hand. Met a pair of brown eyes filled with amusement.  
“Ah- uh, it’s nice to meet you-- Ethan.”

His face was on fucking fire. It probably glowed like the sun. He wanted to kill Allison. He wanted to run and hide and never come out.

“Ali?” a voice came from behind them, “Chris’s looking for you.”

Stiles turned, grateful to have any distraction, and almost gasped in relief when he saw Derek’s large frame filling the entrance.

Derek glanced at Stiles, then focused on the man behind him.  
“Ethan. Long time no see.”  
“Months,” the man said, sounding like he was still grinning.  
Stiles was not about to look back and check.

“It’s good to have you back,” Ethan added.

“Stiles and I, we’ve been having loads of fun,” Allison said, “I showed him the goats and Isaac’s lab. I thought maybe he’d wanna bathe.”

Stiles stared at Derek, desperately hoping to convey that he didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to undress in front of these people or anywhere near them. He definitely didn’t want to be standing next to a wet man who was comfortable walking around naked, and apparently liked to use too much warmth in his voice when speaking to Derek.

Derek motioned to Stiles,  
“Come on. It’s my turn to show you stuff. Ali’s gonna be tied up for a while.”

Stiles went to him quickly, afraid the man would change his mind. At the last moment he remembered Allison.

His face still hot, he turned around,  
“Thank you. For showing me everything. It was fun.”  
She grinned at him,  
“No problem. I’ll see you guys tonight.”

“What’s tonight?” he asked, as soon as they were out of earshot.  
Derek seemed distracted,  
“Tonight? I don’t.... oh. I guess it’s the solstice.”  
“Solstice?”  
“Yeah, Cole keeps track of that. Days, weeks, months. I don’t know what difference it makes but people like knowing. Everyone gets together and drinks too much.”  
He glanced at Stiles, his eyes unreadable,  
“It’s not a big deal. No one has to go.”  
“Oh.”  
What does that mean? That Stiles didn’t have to join if he didn’t want to? Or that it would be the best if he didn’t?

\--

Derek climbed easily. Stiles not so much. He was grateful the man was ahead of him so he didn’t have to see Stiles’s less than graceful attempts to stay attached to the mountain wall. Luckily it was too short of a climb to the ledge for Stiles to truly embarrass himself by falling off. Even though the ledge was steep and two feet wide at most, at least it was solid under his feet. There was something to be said for that.

They stepped off the ledge and into a tunnel, leading deeper into the mountain. Derek unearthed a lamp from his backpack and turned it on, then handed it to Stiles. Soon a green glow of a cave opened up around them. In the middle, the glass surface of water reflected the light.

“This is where I come to wash,” Derek said, “no one else comes up here. There are other pools, closer to the entrance.”

Stiles pictured it. Derek, naked in the water. All that muscle slick and wet.

He closed his eyes for a moment to make the image go away. It didn’t help that he’d already seen one naked wet man today.

“I’ll give you some privacy,” Derek said, and turned to go.  
Stiles surprised them both by reaching for Derek’s wrist. His fingers only brushed it before he pulled his hand back.   
“Don’t-- don’t go too far. Please.”

He was glad for the gloom of the cave so the man could not see his face burning all over again. Derek wouldn’t leave him up here all alone; Stiles knew that. Yet, he was still afraid to let the man out of his sight. It was stupid and childish, this need to stay glued to the his side. Derek was not his babysitter.

Derek’s eyes were completely unreadable, almost black in the darkness.  
“I’ll sit at the entrance,” he said.

He left the lamp in Stiles’s hands and sat down facing the tunnel, his back to the pool.

Stiles hesitated for a few minutes then undressed quickly. The water was cold. He gasped as he sunk into it, refusing to look down at himself. The various cuts were almost healed, most of them just minor discomforts now. His back still felt uncomfortably tight, the new skin still tender, but it was a far cry better than even days ago. The scars would stay though. The marks on his back, around his wrists, ankles and neck, the deep cuts on the inside of one thigh and on the left side of his chest, each one telling a story. Each one had a name. Kate with the whip, Kate with the knife, Kate with the razor blade, marveling at being able to split skin without exerting any pressure, parting it slowly to prolong the pain. Nameless outriders, nameless enforcers. And always Gerard, standing somewhere in the background, watching.

Would he ever be able to look a himself without remembering? His body had become a ghastly map of things he wanted to forget.

He scrubbed furiously, just wanting to get it over with. Derek shifted on the stones and Stiles remembered how gentle his hands had been on the scars. Derek had touched every single one of them. On the heels of that memory came another, the look on Derek’s face when Stiles offered himself in exchange for one bullet. The disgust and anger. The way Derek had stepped back and out of the grasp of Stiles’s hands, as if the smallest touch was unbearable. A painful lump formed in his throat and he swallowed it down, angry with himself.

“Who was the woman you left to Gerard?”

That definitely startled the man. Stiles saw him twitch and almost turn around before he caught himself. A long stretch of silence followed during which Stiles regretted asking the question. If he didn’t like the answer he’d only have himself to blame.

“She was a junkie. Traded antibiotics for morphine. Except that she rarely had antibiotics to trade.”  
Derek shifted again, his voice growing cold,  
“She had a son. Kept him locked in a room. For a bit of morphine she’d unlock the door and let people do whatever they wanted with him. The kid was eleven. I had enough morphine to buy him straight out. I was gonna take him from her and bring him here. Except when she unlocked the door, he was dead. He’d been dead for a while, she just didn’t even notice.”

Suddenly, Stiles was freezing. He got out of the pool and put his clothes on, not caring that they stuck to his skin. He went to Derek and put a hand on his shoulder, aware that the man was likely to just shake it off. Derek stayed completely still for a few moments, his gaze locked on the gaping maw of the tunnel. Then his hand came up and covered Stiles’s.

\--

Oil lamps littered the crevice walls. The sun had just gone down but the inside of the mountain glowed brightly with artificial lights, each one positioned to reflect off the mirrors. Someone was playing a fiddle. Stiles smiled at the sound. They’d had a fiddle player at the village too, but he’d mainly played for the weddings and to cheer up the sick kids.

On one side of him, Allison carried Mila, both dressed in embroidered tunics for the occasion. On the other side strode Derek, his expression cool and unfriendly. He hadn’t wanted to join the celebration; only Allison’s nagging had brought him here. The man hadn’t said two words to him since they left the pool hours earlier. Stiles had agreed to come once Derek did, thinking he would feel a little more comfortable in crowds of strangers with Derek by his side. So far he’d met Ellen, Collin, and Kira. Collin was almost as tall as Derek and just as quiet. The girl, Kira, was the polar opposite, never stopping for breath in her chatter, throwing a dozen questions at Stiles in less than a minute and not seeming to mind that he only managed to answer about half of them. They moved on, and Stiles couldn’t help but notice that Derek hadn’t said a single word the entire time.

Makeshift tables groaned under the piles of food. Kids screamed and ran back and forth, chasing each other around the adults. Allison saw Chris and abandoned them. On a small, stone platform, the fiddle player stood a foot above everyone else. At his feet, a girl played a single drum, drawing out a surprising variety of tones from one piece of leather tightly stretched over a wood frame. Around them, people danced. Bottles of alcohol traveled through the crowd, exchanging hands easily. The atmosphere was light and full of joy. In the midst of it, Derek resembled the stones themselves.

Someone grabbed Stiles’s arm and he flinched, taking a step back towards Derek. He relaxed when he saw that it was only a woman, and an older woman at that.  
“So this is the boy,” she said to no one in particular, her eyes measuring Stiles from head to toe.  
He felt an urge to squirm under so much scrutiny.  
“I told you,” Derek said coldly,  
“He’s not a boy.”  
She ignored him.  
“Pretty eyes,” she said, “Isaac says you know your herbs. Did you have a woman back home?”  
Stiles gaped at her, not sure which part he should address first, if any.  
Derek moved a little closer to him,  
“Stiles, this is Rose, Ellen’s mother.”  
“Ah... nice to meet you.”  
Her eyes flickered to Derek,  
“Pretty manners too. Better be careful or we’re gonna have you married off by sunrise.”  
He felt her grip loosen and took his arm back.  
“Thank you,” he said,   
“but I have no intention of getting married.”  
She laughed, showing that she still had most of her teeth.   
“Guess you better stick by Derek then,” she said,   
“he’s good at running.”  
Then she was gone, before Stiles even had time to process what she said.

He turned to Derek and saw the man’s face had paled.   
“Are you ok?”  
“No,” Derek said without meeting his eyes,  
“I think I’ve had enough celebration for the night. I’ll see you later.”  
Just like that, the man was walking away from him, leaving him in a crowd of strangers.

Stiles considered just letting him go. He could see Allison and Chris at one of the tables; he could join them. Chris didn’t seem any less of a douche now than he was when they first met, but Allison at least seemed to like him. Ellen and Kira had been friendly too. He hadn’t seen Isaac yet, but Stiles looked forward to picking his brain, just to satisfy his own curiosity of nothing else. There was food and drink and general merriment all around him. It had been so long since he’d spent time in a crowd of people who seemed so genuinely happy.

Instead, he found himself rushing to catch up with Derek. If the man was surprised to se Stiles walking alongside of him, he didn’t show it.

\--

He thought Stiles might let him be, especially since the man didn’t seem too fond of climbing. He was surprised to see him keep up, never once letting out a sound of complaint, even though they scaled most of the mountain wall. Derek had picked the area easiest to climb, just in case Stiles decided to follow. He found himself humbled all over again by the man’s blind trust; he never asked where Derek was leading him or why. In the moonlight, even the easiest path up the mountain was treacherous. He found himself wishing that he’d tied a rope to Stiles, just in case. Once they reached the wide ledge though, the climb proved worth the trouble. Miles and miles of the desert stretched out in front of them, another mountain rising in the distance, far enough away that it resembled an anthill. The largest moon of the year hung low in the sky, full and yellow, bathing the desert in silver glow.

“Wow,” Stiles said softly behind him.  
“They view is better higher up,” Derek said,  
“but there’s someone up there at all times. Keeping a lookout for riders. That’s how they saw us coming.”  
“Is there more riders? Like you?”  
“Just one like me. He was in the Second Ring. He should be on his way back now, unless something went wrong.”

Unless someone unearthed a connection between him and Derek. In which case Boyd was probably dead. Or worse. Was he cursing Derek’s name right now? Was he tied to some table like Stiles had been? God, he hoped the man made it back in one piece, even if he never spoke to Derek again.

Stiles’s hand cupped his elbow and slid up slowly, the touch raising goosebumps on Derek’s skin.  
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, “I’ve been nothing but trouble for you.”

Derek wanted to agree. He wanted to tell the man to stop following him around, to find something else to hold on to. And couldn’t.

Just the warmth of Stiles’s fingers on his arm made him feel more alive than he’d felt in years. Rose was right. He’d gotten very good at running. He’d ridden out days after Paige died. For the next ten years, he’d never stopped anywhere longer than a week. In the Rings or home or anywhere in between. He’d had a good excuse not to stick around the Rings for long; the dealer who moved quickly made the best deals. But what was his excuse for riding back out only days after coming home? For sticking around only long enough to soak up gratitude for the medicine he brought, long enough to tumble Ethan somewhere in the darkness, then riding out with the first light, Ali’s worried gaze burning his back until he was out of sight?

Bobby’s words came back to him unbidden, ‘Paige wouldn’t have wanted this for you.’

The man was right, only Derek was too much of a coward to acknowledge it.

Stiles’s touch withdrew and Derek turned to him, only now realizing that his silence had confirmed Stiles’s words. He seemed tense, as if waiting for something unpleasant. Was he still afraid of Derek? Was there still a part of him that saw Derek as a monster?

Sometime between the time they abandoned the pool and the time Ali came around to berate them to join in the celebration, the man had found the time to shave. It made him look young and innocent; no doubt the reason why Rose had insisted on calling him ‘boy.’ But Derek liked it. It exposed the curve of his jaw, the stubborn chin, the perfect bow of his mouth. He made no conscious decision to touch the man’s face, but found himself doing it nonetheless, smoothing a thumb over one cheekbone, the tender flesh under the eye.

Stiles exhaled, his eyes meeting Derek’s, the brown liquid gold in the moonlight. He leaned into the touch slightly; such a small gesture, but it made Derek’s heart beat faster. It seemed like a permission. But for what? And why?

“You don’t owe me anything,” Derek said, his voice hoarse and uneven.  
Stiles’s lips curved slightly, forming a small smile.  
“I owe you everything,” his voice was steadier than Derek’s,   
“but it has nothing to do with this.”

Was that the truth? Derek didn’t know. And because he didn’t know, he was afraid to move, to do anything more than cup his face, enjoying the warmth of it against his palm.

It was Stiles who moved in with surprising determination, one hand coming up to rest on Derek’s chest, palm pressing over his heart. Derek’s heart had gone into overdrive just from Stiles’s smile, from the feel of the man’s smooth shaven cheek. Knowing that Stiles could feel it furiously beating against his palm was terrifying and liberating at the same time.

Carefully, very carefully, as if making sure that his intention could be recognized a mile away, Stiles tilted his head and brushed his lips across Derek’s. Nothing but the faintest contact, but Derek’s knees grew weak, his heart stuttered, his spine tingled. Stiles’s eyes seemed black now, the darkest night with no stars. Even as he leaned forward again, Derek wanted to snatch him by the shoulders and put a stop to it. To tell him not to do this. Not to do it unless he meant it, because Derek wasn’t nearly as strong as everyone thought. One single person was all it took to break him, to wreck him so badly that it took him a decade to piece himself back together. Even so, there were pieces missing, pieces he would never get back. He couldn’t do it again. If Stiles broke him, there wouldn’t be enough left to glue the pieces back.

Stiles’s mouth caught his bottom lip, sucked it into his mouth and Derek forgot everything. His fingers tangled in the messy hair, his mouth moving against Stiles’s, the man’s breath hot on his cheek. He didn’t have to pull him closer; Stiles was already sliding against him, thighs brushing, chest pressing against Derek’s.

A cry echoed above them. Derek jerked back at the sound, fear cutting across his stomach.

“Was that--?”  
“A sign. Someone’s returning.”

\--

They climbed down, Stiles struggling to keep up without falling. Derek never even looked back, as if he’d completely forgotten about him. Stiles told himself it didn’t matter. It was just a kiss. Just a kiss and nothing more. Derek had more important things to worry about right now.

Once they were on solid ground, the man took off running. Stiles followed. The music had gone silent and people stood in small crowds of half a dozen or less, whispering among themselves. Stiles glanced over the crowds and could not see Allison or Chris. Derek didn’t stop.

They were out of the crevice and half way down the mountain when shapes began to emerge. Allison first, her tunic glowing in the moonlight. Two men followed behind her, supporting the third in between them. They stopped in front of Derek, the silence deafening. Derek scooped the third man up easily, as if he weighed nothing, and started climbing back up. Feeling out of place, Stiles went to Allison and she linked her arm through his.

“What happened?” he whispered and she shook her head.  
“Nothing good. We’ll find out soon.”  
She sounded breathless so he asked no more questions.

Even burdened with another man in his arms, Derek moved so fast that they could barely keep up. The two men followed. One of them was Chris, Stiles could see that now. The other was older, a tuft of gray hair sticking out from under a frayed cap.

Isaac met them at the crevice entrance, a canvas sack slung over one shoulder. His shirt was open and his hair disheveled. It was possible that the man had been sleeping, but it didn’t look like it.

Derek stopped, allowing him to touch the man in his arms, to press his hand against the man’s throat and chest.

“The first pool,” Isaac said tightly, “I’ve got Kira heating water and Nia’s gone to get some blankets.”

Derek veered to the left, towards stone arches of another tunnel.

The pool was small but deep, the bottom lost in the darkness. There was a fire burning on one end of it, a steel grate erected above the flames. Kira was sliding a pan of water onto the grate as Derek slowly lowered the man on the pile of blankets spread out next to the pool. She had no smiles for them this time.

Isaac knelt next to the man, dumping his bag on the ground. Stiles could now finally see the man’s face, Jackson’s face, and it was hard to pick up any features. One cheekbone completely shattered, mouth just a red wound, nose broken so viciously that Stiles doubted it could be reset. His shirt drenched in blood, nearly black.

“Stiles,” Isaac said, “I need you.”

For a moment Stiles didn’t realize he was being spoken to. When Isaac looked up at him, he stepped back.

No. He didn’t do that any more. He wasn’t that person any more. He’d killed two men, filled them with bullets and never felt an ounce of guilt. He’d never be what his father had wanted him to be, it was the wrong way for him, he knew that now. There was no going back.

“I-- I can’t,” he said hoarsely.

“You can’t?” Chris’s hand latched on to his arm, shaking him like a rag doll, “You can’t? He’s fucking here because of you! Lee might be dead because of you! You can’t?!”

Each word was like a slap in the face. He’d never wanted this. Ever. If he’d known that this was gonna be the cost, he would have stayed behind. He would have let Gerard torture him until he was dead, or too gone to care. He didn’t ask for this.

He heard Derek growl an instant before his hand was fisting Chris’s shirt, pushing him so hard that the man stumbled back.

Chris scowled at Derek, his voice laced with fury,  
“And you, strutting around here like some goddamned saint after you screwed us all. Was it worth it? Getting into his pants? Was his ass worth Lee’s life? Jackson’s?”

Derek’s fist slammed into Chris’s face. The man tripped over the rocks and sat down hard, blood immediately pouring from a split lip.

“Stop it,” Allison snapped, her tiny frame materializing in front of Derek.

She pushed him back with both hands and Derek stepped back, probably more out of surprise than any force she could have placed behind the push.

“What is wrong with you?” she hissed, “Both of you? This isn’t the time. We still don’t know if Lee is dead or alive, Jackson’s bleeding to death and you two... you two are like...”

She choked and coughed, covering her mouth. A spasm shook her body, then another. Her coughs were hollow and dry, the intensity of them making her entire body shudder. Stiles’s stomach turned at the faint spray of blood she couldn’t contain with her hand.

Derek reached for her, but Chris was there before him. He wrapped his arm around her, blood trickling down his chin. He seemed to have forgotten all about Derek, Stiles, and everyone else.

“Breathe baby girl. Through your nose, like we practiced, remember? Breathe.”

“Stiles,” Isaac snapped, “Now. I need you now.”

Feeling numb all over, Stiles stumbled over and dropped to his knees next to him.

Isaac glanced up quickly but there was no impatience in his gaze, no disappointment, nothing but determination.

“Put your hands here,” Isaac instructed.  
Stiles obeyed.

\--

He didn’t know how much time had passed. That was normal; he remembered it from all those hours in the sickrooms, by the beds of the dying, his dad by his side. Sometimes it seemed to take years, sometimes only minutes, but he always found himself surprised to see that the sun had moved, or that the night had, at some point, drifted into the day. When he could sit back and away from the bloody man in front of him, there was a faint light in the tunnel that didn’t belong to the fire. Dawn was creeping up on them. The muscles in his shoulders screamed. His fingers were cramping from handling the needle and thread, from holding the slippery edges of torn flesh together. It had felt like sleepwalking, like someone else was doing it. Now that it was done, he blinked and looked around, wondering why everything looked different.

Most of the others had gone and Stiles hadn’t noticed them go. They were alone; him, Isaac, and the guy who would live. Jackson would probably never walk again. His leg had been broken in four different places. Resetting the bones and lining them up had been the worst part, mainly because he’d woken up and shrieked until the pain made him lose consciousness again.

Stiles tried to get to his feet and found that his arms would not hold him up. His stomach felt weak, quivering under his breastbone. He wanted to vomit but he hadn’t eaten since the bread Allison had given him, which had been hours ago. A day ago now? He wasn’t sure.

An arm wrapped around his waist and he flinched.

Derek looked as exhausted as he felt, deep grooves etched under his eyes.  
“I got you,” he said.  
Stiles let himself be lifted to his feet. His bloody hand slid over Derek’s shirt, leaving a deep red streak.  
“Shit,” he rasped, “I’m sorry, I’m-“ and then he was gagging, bending over and dry heaving, his stomach expelling nothing but bile.

Derek helped him kneel back down, one arm still wrapped around him. Stiles wanted to push him away because it was just too much. People were dying because of him. Good people. They had given him food and safety and had shown him kindness and he was repaying them by getting their friends and family killed. Why didn’t he just die on Gerard’s table?

He dry heaved until he couldn’t breathe, until his face was streaked with tears and his nose clogged. When it finally subsided, he felt Derek’s hand brush the back of his head and tilt his face up. A cool cloth pressed against his forehead, his cheeks, wiped across his mouth and chin. Derek took his hands next and cleaned them carefully, the blood staining the cloth red.

“Derek,” he rasped, wanting to tell him that he was sorry, that he was so fucking sorry for all of this.  
“Not now,” Derek said, “Let’s get you out of here.”

He let Derek help him up again, his fingers weakly scrambling for purchase against the shirt he’d stained, too weak to hold on. They stumbled across the rocks towards the tunnel exit and Stiles wondered if they would all be out there. Allison and Chris and Ellen. How could he meet their eyes? How could he lift his head ever again?

But the crevice was silent and empty.

\--

“I should go back,” he whispered.

Even so, his whisper seemed to echo in the cave. He thought it would be easier to say it, wrapped in darkness. Aside from Derek’s soft breathing, the silence was cruel and complete. They were lying side by side, like statues, more than a few feet of space in between them. To Stiles, they seemed like miles. That kiss they shared seemed lifetimes ago, centuries.

“Back where?”  
“Back to the Ring. Give myself up.”

He didn’t want to. People might be dying because of him, Derek’s friends, family, the whole settlement was in danger because of him, and he was terrified. He was too terrified to even consider what Gerard might do to him if he gave himself up.

“Don’t be stupid,” Derek said.  
“That kid-- he got hurt because of me,” Stiles said, his throat bitter, threatening to choke him, “and he’s just the first. Gerard is-- proud, stubborn, he won’t give up. He’s got resources, he’ll want to make an example out of someone. Better me than--“  
“No,” Derek shifted, his voice tight, “just-- no. It’s not you he wants. It’s me. I betrayed him. He wants to make an example out of me.”

Stiles clenched his fists despite the lingering pain. How did everything turn out like this?

There was a phrase he’d read in one of his dad’s old books that he couldn’t get out of his head. Cascading failures. It was incredibly fitting. Starting with the moment he’d picked up that steel pipe and mindlessly attacked, giving up all he’d learned, all the oaths he’d meant to take. Everything he’d believed in, gone with one swing, reinforced by a hail of bullets striking flesh. Cascading failures he’d triggered.

“You should’ve left me there.”  
Derek inhaled sharply. Stiles could see his outline in the gloom, pushing the blankets off, sitting up.  
“You don’t mean that.”  
“If you’d left me there none of this would be happening.”  
“If I left you there, you’d be dead.”  
“So?”

Heartbeats of silence followed, then Derek stood up.

There was a quick shuffle, the sound of the zipper and the snap of the shoe laces. The scrape of his boot against the stone was incredibly loud, until it grew faint and disappeared completely. Stiles curled up tight.

\--

Derek climbed.

Paige used to tease him about it. Whenever they got in an argument, or him and Chris bumped heads, or a decision had to be made, Derek would find himself on top of the mountain. It wasn’t the climb itself; it was the solitude. Trapped in a mountain with hundreds of people, solitude had always been hard to come by. He didn’t exactly have a lot of options, especially as a teenager. Back then, he couldn’t understand how people could make life changing decisions on the spot, without taking the time to weigh out all the options, without taking the time to consider the consequences.

He’d never considered himself particularly smart or resourceful. Paige had been such a polar opposite that it seemed only natural they’d been so drawn to each other. It had taken Derek years not to think less of himself for needing that time, the solitude, the silence, in which he can organize his thoughts without interruptions. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as Isaac or as strong as Ali. He didn’t have Ellen’s presence or Chris’s convictions. But he wasn’t stupid. Just different. And as much as Paige used to tease him about needing to climb before he decided whether they can sneak out two nights in the row, Paige had always understood. Understood, and never thought any less of him.

And Derek missed her. Sometimes he missed her so fiercely that he felt paralyzed by it.

He stopped at the ledge where Stiles had kissed him. The sun was already rising, the sky bleeding red around it, spilling across the desert. It was only a handful of hours, not even a full night, since Stiles had placed his hand over Derek’s heart. Since he’d told Derek that he owed him everything. And yet, when he’d kissed him, it hadn’t felt like a debt being repaid. It had felt real.

What did Derek want?

For years he hadn’t wanted anything. It was so much safer not to.

After all, he couldn’t have any of the things he wanted. Paige was never coming back. Allison’s health would never miraculously improve. The dust would never go away, and the world will stay the same no matter what he wants.

Knowing there was no point in wanting anything had worn him down, worn away the person he used to be, until he became a stranger to himself. Who was he now? What came out of ten years of breaking bread with men like Gerard, ignoring the pain and suffering in his path, condemning others to death when it suited him? And how could anyone love this thing he’d become?

How could Stiles step into his arms with no fear, after seeing Derek at his worst?

He wanted Stiles. He wanted the kid who took out two of Gerard’s enforcers with a steel pipe. The boy who worked tirelessly to save a stranger, cool and collected, then broke down when he smeared blood over Derek’s shirt. The foolish idiot who would have rather died on Gerard’s table, than be the cause of harm to others.

He wanted Stiles to want him, as broken and worn down as he was. To look at him the way he had the night before, as if Derek was someone worthy of being loved. He wanted to be that person Stiles saw.

Desert shimmered around him. The sun had climbed far enough to turn the blood to gold. In the distance, he could see the mountain again, the marker where East began.

How far to the end?

How many days out in the open with no cover, vulnerable to the winds and the storms? How many lives would the Eastern settlements claim before any of them caught even a whisper of green?

\--

The crevice was eerily silent. People were still going about their business as usual, except that everyone seemed to tiptoe. No one spoke to Derek. No one even looked at him.

He fought the urge to check on Jackson first. If there had been any changes, Isaac would have sent a message. Instead, he exited the crevice all together and began to climb once again. The stones were smooth and slick here, worn down by countless hands and feet taking the same path. He’d climbed the same way millions of times as a child, alone and with Ali. Each time he was painfully aware that his father’s hands had once gripped those same stones, that his boots had fit into the same grooves.

Some thirty feet up there was a ledge sheltered by rocks, a lookout point for West only. It’s where children waited for their fathers or mothers to return from the Rings, lovers fretted, parents spent their nights with stones as pillows and stars as blankets. Derek and Boyd had not been the first to ride into enemy territory and come back over and over again. But maybe they would be the last. Or maybe Derek was already the last.

He found Bobby tucked in a corner, dozing in the shade. The man didn’t look surprised to see him.

Derek sat down, suddenly feeling thousands of years old,  
“We need a plan.”

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Only when a hand on his shoulder woke him did Stiles realize that he’d fallen asleep. It startled him, the unexpected contact, his mind flashing first to Kate, to the cold cell where he’d spent countless nights, and the pain that followed each time he woke up. He jerked back and away from the touch, elbow scraping on stone.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me.”  
“Allison?”  
“You need to come with me. There’s a council meeting. Actually, it’s more of a town meeting.”

He blinked in the gloom and noticed that the light was more muted now than it had been before he’d fallen asleep.  
“Is-- is it cloudy?”

The word felt odd in his mouth, foreign. Even in the poor light, he could see her head tilt as if he’d spoken in a different language.

“It’s evening,” she said, “The sun went down a few minutes ago. You slept all day I think.”  
“Where’s Derek?”  
“Waiting for us.”

Stiles struggled to his feet, his back and legs stiff. His hands ached. His stomach felt weak.  
“They’re gonna kick me out, aren’t they?”  
“Of course not.”  
“I don’t blame them if they do.”  
“Don’t be stupid,” she said, nudging him out of the cave, “That’s not what we do.”

Outside, the night was falling quickly. She grabbed the edge of his sleeve, leaving him no choice but to follow.

“You’re not the only one, you know,” she said, “Derek’s done this before. And Boyd and Bobby. And our mom before them. She brought my dad out of the Rings. Even Rose was an outrider, back when the Rings weren’t so dangerous. She was gone for six months once. Everyone thought she was dead. Came back already pregnant with Ellen and a strange man on the back of her bike. We weren’t all born in the mountain. We’ve been taking people in for years, decades.”  
“But not like this,” Stiles said, “Not like me. No one’s caused this much trouble before.”

She was silent for a while, their steps echoing.

Then she sighed,  
“That’s not true. My dad did.”  
“Chris?”  
“He left Third Ring because of my mom. Left his whole family. They’d organized hunting parties for him. If they’d caught him, they would’ve killed him. For months after he came here, everyone lived in fear that the enforcers would find us. There’s a still a price on his head today, almost two decades later. Argents aren’t forgiving.”

He froze, everything suddenly falling into place. The instant dislike for the man without being able to put his finger on the reason. The odd familiarity of his features, even though Stiles knew they’d never met before. The way Chris spoke, the way he moved. Gerard’s son.

“Gerard is your grandfather,” he said.

She grimaced.

“Wow,” Stiles said, his mind spinning, “That sucks.”

The moment the words were out of his mouth he wanted them back. But she looked surprised for all of two seconds, then she shrugged.  
“Yeah, that’s a pretty good way to put it.”

She tugged on his sleeve again and he stumbled after her.

“We might share blood, but they’re not my family,” she said firmly, “Chris and Derek are my family. Talia was my mother. And Argents are monsters. But,”  
she glanced at him,  
“it doesn’t change the fact that bringing my dad here was considered one of the worst decisions made. Ever. In the history of our time here. So he really has no right to complain.”  
“But everything that’s happening right now is still my fault,” he mumbled.

“It’s not. It’s not like skill or stealth kept us safe and hidden all these years. Dad can argue it until he’s blue in the face, but we all know it’s been pure luck so far. If it wasn’t you, now, it would’ve been someone else, a week from now, a month from now, six months... who knows? A kid Boyd found on Kali’s hook and couldn’t leave behind. A girl that belongs to one of the enforcers. Derek and Boyd, Bobby... they’re only human. Besides,”  
her voice grew tired,  
“it’s gotten worse. The Rings, they’ve expanded. The enforcers are multiplying, covering more ground, searching further and further out. The resources are dwindling and the human population is increasing. Out there, in here, everywhere. Gerard and the rest of them... they have no way of stopping it, any more than we do. Power makes them feel secure, you know? It ensures their survival even as people around them are dying. And it makes people feel secure, knowing there is someone in charge, even if those in charge do nothing but decide who lives and who dies. This isn’t a new concept Stiles, it’s been in works for thousands of years. We might’ve been lucky for a long time,”  
she squeezed his fingers lightly,  
“but it’s not your fault the luck ran out.”

\--

Derek had expected questions, complaints, accusations. What he didn’t expect was the hushed silence, tense whispers, as if no one wanted to be the one to throw the first rock. Only Allison, Bobby, and Ellen knew what he was about to do, and their support had seemed important up until the moment two hundred men, women and children had gathered to hear him speak. He wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans for the third time in five minutes, and worked some moisture in his mouth. Allison was still nowhere to be seen, but he had to speak now. The longer he waited, the harder it was going to be.

He saw Isaac shift impatiently against the crevice wall and a sudden inspiration struck him.

“Isaac, can you come up here for a minute?”  
Isaac’s eyes widened slightly but he complied, the crowd of people parting to let him through.

Derek cleared his throat,  
“Can you tell us-- everyone, how the progress with penicillin is going?”

Isaac blinked slowly,  
“Fine. I mean, it’s untested and some minor adjustments might have to be made, to compensate for the severity of infections and the age and weight of those who use it, but the basic formula is workable.”  
“That sounds like a good thing.”  
“No, yeah, it’s a great thing, especially now, since the last batches brought in are testing at barely quarter of their strength. I mean, the ideal temperature for maximum effectiveness hasn’t been seen in over ninety years so we’ve been lucky.”  
“Can you... explain that in terms of what it means for us?”  
“For us? It means more of the same. The antibiotics we’ve been getting in through you and Boyd are pretty much worthless half the time. Each batch gets tested and each batch is a little less effective than the one before it. They just aren’t meant to last this long.”

Murmurs broke out in the crowd.

“What do you mean ineffective?” someone called out.  
“Are you saying the medicine isn’t working?”  
“Of course it’s working you idiot, you just had some last week and you’re still here,” someone else yelled back.  
A few people chuckled but most stayed silent and watchful.

“No, I’m not talking about medicine in general,” Isaac said, rolling his eyes, “the liquids were better sealed to begin with, and morphine’s always had a better shelf life. Besides, morphine or any opiate at half effectiveness is still a viable pain reliever, but antibiotics at quarter effectiveness? It makes a pretty poor cure.”

“They’re trying to tell us that trips to the Rings aren’t worth what we’re getting out of them,” Chris snapped, “so we wouldn’t be pissed off that we’ve lost access to them.”

Isaac straightened,  
“I don’t know what Derek’s trying to do, and I don’t really care. But you, of all people, know that out of every eighty cephalosporin that come into the this mountain, we only end up using twenty. You and Allison both know exactly how many we have on hand, and how many of those are still testing as effective. And I’m the one that tests the fucking things, so you can hardly accuse me of taking sides.”

“So then what’s the big deal,” Colin called out from the crowd, “No Rings means no antibiotics that suck anyway. If Isaac can make them, who cares?”

“Tell them what it takes Isaac,” Derek said softly, “to make the antibiotics for our population.”

“More resources than I’ve got,” Isaac snorted, “more than a dozen batteries a week you guys bring, out of which half are fucking useless, if they don’t explode within twenty four hours of getting here. More supplies than we have access to. Not to mention that they take a long time to make. If I had five people working with me day and night, and I could count on them not to fuck up, and if I had the sufficient equipment for five people? It would still take days to make one batch for one serious infection.”

The murmurs grew louder.

Chris stepped up to Derek and hissed,  
“Are you trying to cause panic?”  
“Not yet. Thank you, Isaac. Ellen,” Derek called out, “Can you tell us how the food supplies are doing?”

Chris turned to the crowd,  
“I think we’ve heard enough. Derek’s trying to save his own skin. It’s just a scare tactics routine.”

“Jesus Chris, shut up for once!” someone yelled out in the back.  
“We wanna hear it!”  
“Let her talk!”

Dozens of voices joined in protest. A path opened up for Ellen to come to the front and Chris stepped back, his face turning a dangerous shade of red.

She turned to the crowd, face cool and composed,  
“Derek’s asked me to speak to you because we’re about to encounter some problems. We’re about to breach the hundred year mark since the Old World burned. So far the food we’ve been finding is stored in tin-coated or tin-free steel, and even in optimal environment, this steel begins to biodegrade at a hundred year mark. We’ve been trying to find food that was produced in the last couple of years before the meteor shower, but the production in those last few years was already lagging due to nearly two decades of war. Now, this doesn’t mean that our stores are automatically unfit for consumption, but it does mean that we need to be ready for it. For the past ten years, our food committee has been storing food in vacuum sealed glass jars instead, which is more suitable for our environment and temperature. Another good news is that rice, salt and flour, properly stored, can last us another fifty years easily. As you all know, we do have our own meat, and we’ve been growing our own vegetables successfully for decades.”  
“But?” Derek said.  
“But,” she said, “what we produce here without outside resources can only feed about fifty people on a yearly basis.”

The crevice imploded.

Everyone began to shout at once, voices echoing against the mountain walls. Chris looked ready to bite someone’s head off. In the midst of panicked faces Derek finally saw Allison, making her way to the front. And by her side, hunched as if to make himself smaller, Stiles, his wide eyes locked on Derek.

Until he saw him, Derek hadn’t realized how afraid he’d been that Allison would come alone. That Stiles would already be gone, on his way to the Rings like some sacrificial lamb. He would’ve dropped everything and gone after him. He would’ve gone that same night, leaving Allison and Ellen to carry the burden of the aftermath on their own.

Watching Stiles tuck himself in the corner, away from unfriendly stares, he took a deep breath. In a little while, when all was settled, he had one last decision to make. But for now, there was still work to do.

Allison stepped up next to him.  
“Hey guys,” she said, addressing the first row of people, “do you mind quieting down? We’re not done here.”

The word traveled back and within moments, the noise died down.

“You all know me,” she said, “And you know that Isaac and I have been focusing half our time on finding the cure for the cough. We’ve had the best resources the outriders can provide. John’s research left us with a pretty decent framework, and after he passed away, we’ve made every attempt to build on it. We’ve done our best,” she said, only her clasped hands giving away her nerves, “because it was personal, it was a priority, a matter of survival for those of us that are most vulnerable. And after all that work, we have nothing to show for it.”

She took a deep breath and glanced at Chris. Something complicated passed between them that left him looking lost, as if she’d swiped the ground from under his feet.

“The fact of the matter is,” she went on, “this environment is the only variable we haven’t been able to change. Sure, we’re sheltered from the worst of the dust in the mountain, and sure, the air here is cleaner than out there. But obviously, it’s not good enough. The only viable solution is to try and find a better environment, somewhere that’s not here.”

“Are you saying we need to leave here?” Cole sounded shocked, “Leave the mountain?”  
“And where are we supposed to go?” Nia snapped.  
“They want us to move into the Rings,” someone yelled out, and the crowd started to protest loudly.

“Shut up,” Derek roared.

“The world isn’t made up of this mountain and the Rings,” Allison said calmly, “Just because we decided to settle here, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t other places out there, better places.”

She motioned to Bobby,  
“Bobby? Can you come up here? Tell them a bit about what we talked about earlier?”

Bobby stepped up, looking awkward,  
“Um, so, I’ve been an outrider here for... what? Thirty years? Give or take. When Chris took over running things, we agreed that I’d stay away from East settlements, mainly because they’re not too fond of anything coming from the West, and Chris didn’t want me to get shot. But the thing is, after thirty years, I’ve pretty much combed though my section of this damn desert a hundred times. There’s nothing left to be found out there. So I decided to screw the rules. I mean, I don’t know about Derek or Lee and Jackson, but I don’t like coming back empty handed. Seemed like a waste of a trip.”

He shrugged,  
“It wasn’t easy sneaking through their lines. They’re a pretty organized bunch and armed to the teeth, but that alone got me to wondering what they’re trying to protect, you know? And for a first few hours there’s nothing much to see. But then I came across scrub pines. I haven’t seen any of those since I was a boy, nearly knocked me on my ass. The settlements themselves are all laid out like real towns, I think they must’ve built the houses out of those same pines. And they’ve got greenhouses, honest to God greenhouses, giant glass things surrounded by armed guards night and day. But once you really get past the borders, there’s stuff growing. Plants, growing on their own. Grass. Flowers. I saw a field of corn, a small field and all rigged up to be covered, but still, when was the last time any of you saw corn? They’re growing it. It just about blew my mind. And then, on my way back, it rained. They actually get rains. From the taste of it, the stuff is pretty bad, you can’t drink it the way it is, but boiled? Unlimited water source.”

Half the crowd looked skeptical and the other half thoughtful, but the murmurs suggested they were all drawing the conclusion Derek had hoped for.

“Did they Eastern settlements by any chance agree to let two hundred of our people in?” Chris asked cooly.  
Bobby grunted,  
“You know the answer to that.”  
“Then what was the point of all that?”

“The point,” Derek finally spoke up, “Is that we can’t stay here. It’s not safe any more. And yes,” he snapped before Chris could open his mouth, “that is partly my fault. I know that none of you agree with what I did, but I’m not sorry. If you’ve come here for an apology, you’re gonna leave disappointed. I’m sorry about a lot things I’ve done over the years,” he said again, his eyes automatically finding Stiles in the crowd, “but this isn’t one of those things. What I’m offering is a solution. Our resources are running out and our life here, in the desert, has only gotten more difficult. We were never meant to stay here forever. This was a pit stop on the way to something better, except that we failed to move on. Rose can tell you, she was there. Forty people settled here with an intention of licking their wounds, gathering supplies, and moving forward in a year. Instead, we’ve been here for fifty. Fifty years. In another twenty five, when Mila is my age, there will be over three hundred of us here. Maybe more. We don’t have resources now to feed two hundred. Things aren’t going to magically improve. The outriders aren’t gonna find a field of food and medicine and batteries on their next trip. We can’t stay here and survive. The only answer is to move on, and to move on East.”

“But what if they don’t let us cross?” Cole said.  
"Then we find a way around them, or we stand our ground and make them. Anything is better than sitting here and waiting for inevitable.”

“There is no way to sneak two hundred people through the borders and into East, you know that, and Bobby knows that,” Chris rounded on him, “The fact is, they’ll be more than happy to stand their ground. Trying to forcefully push out way through the borders will get half of us killed.”

“Half of us are dying now,” Derek said softly, “there are more small graves in this mountain than there are healthy kids. If half of us get killed, it’ll be you and me. Cole and Ethan and Aiden. Bobby. Those who decide to stand and fight. It won’t be the children. Can you honestly tell me that it’s not worth the risk? Even a small chance of a better life for them?”

“Isaac,” a voice rose from the back of the crowd, “Where is Isaac?”

The crowd hushed as Kira shoved her way through,  
“Isaac, you need to come. He’s awake.”

\--

It was terrifying to see that he looked no better for being awake. Kira had him propped up slightly, so he was reclining against a pile of blankets, another tucked around his legs and hiding the splints from the view. Half his face was bandaged, the crooked shape of his nose obvious even under the wrappings. Still, when he saw Derek he flipped him off, showing that his middle finger was broken and splinted.

“Jesus,” Derek said, “you look like shit.”  
“Still better looking than you,” Jackson rasped, “Kira says Lee isn’t back yet.”  
“No, not yet. What happened out there?”  
“Got separated. I needed to fuel up. Next thing I know, I’ve got three enforcers on me. Asking me all sorts of questions. Where I came from. Who’s my boss. Told them to fuck off.”  
“Why? You know better than that.”  
“They made fun of my freckles.”

Derek rubbed his mouth, trying to push down anger,  
“This isn’t a joke Jackson. You could’ve been killed.”  
Jackson leaned slightly, his face contorting in pain,  
“Damn fucking right it’s not a joke. I was carrying guns. Two sacks of rice, and a goddamn car battery. All wrapped up neatly like a fucking present. My fuel tank was full. They already knew that there’s a settlement somewhere in the desert. They’ve probably known for a long time. They were fucking furious that they couldn’t get it out of me. It was almost funny. Until they started breaking things.”  
“Which Ring?”  
“Which do you think? Kali’s goons don’t take a dump unless she says they can. Gerard’s would’ve probably strapped me down and fucked me until I cried.”  
“So Deucalion knows we’re here.”  
“Deucalion doesn’t know shit. I didn’t tell them.”  
“What if they have Lee?”  
“Lee won’t tell them either. It’s not the first time we got beat up.”

Derek felt his chest tighten,  
“They left you for dead.”  
“Do I look dead?”

Derek stood up, feeling nauseous,  
“Yeah, all right. Let me know if you need anything, ok? Anything at all.”  
“Fuck you Hale, I’m not fucking dying. Take your fucking pity somewhere else.”

\--

He couldn’t stand the idea of going back. Walking into that crowd of people again, attempting to answer a million questions that probably had no answers. It wasn’t fair and he knew it. It wasn’t fair to leave Ali and Bobby out there to deal with the fallout. Ellen would probably skin him alive for abandoning her in that mess. But it was late. He was tired. If they all wanted to descend on him in the morning, he would be more than happy to deal with it then. At that moment, after seeing Jackson practically shattered, he just wanted to be left alone.

He climbed again, the ledges and handholds familiar even in darkness, finding his way around the crevice where torchlights still burned. He could almost hear them, far below him, still arguing. He didn’t look down.

He dropped back down to the ground a few feet away from his cave, sure that no one would think to look for him there. A light burned brightly inside though, and he ducked in quickly, hoping it was just Ali.

Stiles scrambled to his feet.

Derek froze. For some reason, Stiles was the last person he’d expected to see. Everything he’d wanted to say to the man earlier was suddenly jumbled in his brain, a tangled mess of words and emotions that made no sense.

“Are you ok?” Stiles asked softly.  
Derek opened his mouth to say sure, of course he was fine, everything was good.  
Instead, he found himself telling the truth,  
“No.”

Cautiously, Stiles moved closer. It hurt, the calculated way he entered Derek’s space, as if he wasn’t sure what would happen. After everything, did Stiles really think Derek might lash out and hurt him?

“I’m glad you’re here,” Derek said,  
“After this morning, after everything, I was afraid that you’d just-- leave without--“  
He was reaching for him without thinking, and even as his hand was coming up to touch, he wondered if this was the wrong thing to do, if Stiles would step back. But Stiles leaned in to meet him, tucking himself against Derek’s chest as if he belonged there, as if it was the most natural thing to do. His forehead came to rest against Derek’s neck and his arms wrapped around him tightly, fingers clenching in the back of Derek’s shirt.

All the stress of two sleepless days, Jackson hurt and Lee missing, the enormity of what he’d just done and what it might mean, it all crashed on him at once, an enormous, terrifying weight. He buried his face in Stiles’s neck, trying not to squeeze back, trying not to grip the man like he was the only solid thing left in the world.

\--

They ended up in the corner of the cave, the blankets piled up around them. Derek looked worn out. Back at the meeting, facing hundreds of people, he’d looked confident, unshakeable. He’d looked like a leader. A far cry from this exhausted man who’d practically thrown himself into Stiles’s arms, as if Stiles could hold him up. All of the things Stiles had wanted to say had lodged in his throat at the sight of him. It was mind blowing, that Derek trusted Stiles to see him like this, looking beaten and lost and unsure of everything. That at the end of the day, Derek would choose Stiles to lean on.

Derek had let himself be manhandled, allowing Stiles to push him to lie down. He’d dropped his head in Stiles’s lap without a complaint and said nothing when Stiles piled blankets on top of him, his hand gripping the loose material of Stiles’s jeans like an anchor. He stayed silent when Stiles combed his hair with his fingers. His face was turned away, his eyes closed as if he were sleeping. The air around them fragile, like the wrong sound could shatter everything. Here was yet another side of him that Stiles knew nothing about. How many of these sides were there? Would he never stop discovering new layers?

He could feel the heat of Derek’s breath through the material of his jeans, warming his skin. Under his hand, the man’s hair felt surprisingly soft. No one had ever looked to Stiles for comfort, not like this. It felt enormous, this tiny thing, it felt like a revelation. The vulnerable neckline, the exposed collar bone, the shell of Derek’s ear. A lump rose in his throat.

He was the catalyst, the spark that created all of this. He could see a million ways it could have been avoided, each and every one hinging on Stiles never having picked up that pipe. He could have accepted having lost himself, his purpose, having lost everything he had been before. But causing this, two hundred people marching into the desert in search of a land that might not even exist, to have been the spark that set it off, how was he to live with this? They would die in the desert. Dozens of them, starting with the weak and the young. Derek knew this, Stiles had seen it in his eyes when he spoke to them. Derek knew, he had to understand that Stiles was the one who had triggered the chain of events that brought them here. Was this his punishment? Was this a lesson to be learned, an example of what happened when the ripples of one decision, harm caused in a fit of anger, spread further and further out, like a disease?

He should leave here. He knew that. He should go back, hand himself over to Gerard, tell him he was the one who’d shot his guards, tell him that Derek had nothing to do with it. Take the blame for everything and then take the punishment. Maybe it wouldn’t stop the chain of events he’d triggered, but it might give Derek and the rest of them some time. It might save the lives of the two outriders still out there. If the manhunt was called off, maybe the mountain could stay a safe hiding place. No one had ever found Chris, even though they’d never stopped searching for him. If they had Stiles, maybe they’d stop searching for Derek. Maybe he could still fix this.

Derek reached up, his fingers tangling with Stiles’s. He shifted, looking up, eyes gold in the lamplight. The circles under them seemed deeper, like fresh bruises. Only now, Stiles could hear how fast his own heart was beating, how shaky his own hands had gotten. He wanted to blurt it all out. An admission of his own guilt, because Derek was obviously choosing to ignore it. His plan to fix it, to give up, to pay some sort of penance for what he’d done. But Derek spoke first.

“Don’t leave.”

Stiles froze, wondering if Derek had read it in his face, in his eyes.

“I know I don’t have the right to ask you that. I know it makes me no better than--“ he swallowed heavily, “but don’t leave.”

The silence stretched, unbearable. Stiles closed his eyes so he didn’t have to look at him. Derek’s fingers tightened around his and he squeezed back mindlessly, fighting with the lump in his throat. Why was it so hard to get the words out? Just a simple no; that was all he had to say. Was it cowardice that was holding him back? Still? Was he that afraid of pain, of Kate, that he couldn’t get a single word out?

He felt Derek’s head leave his lap, felt him shift and sit up.

“I will never ask you for anything again,” Derek said, his voice closer now, low and urgent, “I swear to you, on my life. Just don’t leave. Stay with me.”

“Did you know I was supposed to take the Oath?” Stiles said softly, “If dad hadn’t been killed, I would’ve taken it two days later. Two days. I was ready. I’d been training for it my entire life. To protect life. To do no harm. To never turn away from those in need. And above all, to remember that I’m not God, that human life is not mine to take in anger, or in hate. That I’m supposed to above those failings, answering to something higher, something better, because with all the knowledge given to me, comes a responsibility, not to misuse that knowledge, not to fail those who have taken the Oath before me and who will take it after me. And now everything-- everything is wrong.”  
“Stiles--“  
“No, you don’t get it, ok? I wasn’t sorry. I wasn’t sorry when I attacked Gerard’s enforcers and I wasn’t sorry afterwards. I don’t feel bad for killing two people. I don’t. I would-- I would do it all over again if I had to. But this, all of this-- a price on your head, Gerard’s enforcers combing the desert, your outriders dying-- Jesus Derek, don’t you see? It started with me. All of this started with me.”

Derek straightened up,  
“Hey, I took you from Gerard. I put the damn gun in your hand. I took you out of the Ring. You don’t get to carry the guilt for everything by yourself, okay? You don’t get to do that. I gambled on everyone’s lives here. Two hundred people you didn’t even know about. That’s my burden and I’ll fucking take it, I’m happy to carry it. I’m not saying this because I feel guilty about what I’ve done. I’m saying it because I don’t.”

He reached up, his palm brushing Stiles’s cheek carefully, fingers trembling against his skin,  
“I’m sorry about your dad. I’m sorry you never got to take the Oath, and I’m sorry about everything that came after. You’re right, I don’t get what it means to you. I’ve left a trail of blood across the desert. I’ve played God more times than I can count. I’ve never had something higher to answer to, and deep down I’m just a selfish creature. I was selfish when I took you from the Ring, when I put the gun in your hand, when I brought you here, and I’m selfish now. Because I need you to stay. With me. I’m not asking for-- I’m not asking for anything else.”

“Why?” Stiles blurted out, “What good am I to anyone?”  
“Because you’re not afraid of me. You trust me. And when you look at me, I’m-- I’m someone else. Someone better.”

“What if I say no?”

Derek pulled back, hurt flickering across his face only for a moment before it settled into something hollow and blank, something Stiles immediately wished he hadn’t caused.  
“My bike can be ready to go in a couple of hours. We have some stashes of gas out there, I can draw you a map so you can find them. Bobby can make another one with all the weak points in the Eastern border. You should be able to sneak through easily. We’ll load you up with supplies and morphine. In the worst possible case, if they catch you, they’d probably be willing to trade, but a single person crossing the border rarely ever attracts attention.”  
  
“So those are my choices?”

Derek squeezed his eyes shut,  
“No. You can go back and give yourself up. If that’s what you want. But I’ll come after you.”

Feeling numb all over, Stiles opened his mouth and a boot scraped outside the cave, a soft voice drifting in,  
“Derek?”

Derek got to his feet,  
“What.”

An unfamiliar girl hovered at the entrance, her heavy-lidded eyes flickering to Stiles before settling on Derek,  
“Chris sent me. Will says he saw something, West, maybe a mile or so out. Just a flicker. Could be nothing, broken glass moving in the wind, but with everything... Chris want to go see what it is. He asked if you want to come.”  
“He didn’t ask,” Derek said, his voice cold.  
She blushed slightly,  
“No. He said for you to come.”  
“Tell him I’ll be right there.”

She left quickly and Derek picked up his jacket, pulling it back on. He hadn’t slept or eaten. He’d gotten no rest. Stiles wanted to say something, to remind him he can’t just go on like this forever, that he’s only human. Except that maybe he’d lost the right to say any of those things. Maybe he’d never had the right to say them in the first place.

He expected the man to just walk out, but Derek paused at the entrance.  
“Do one thing for me,” he said without turning around, “If you decide to leave, at least-- wait for me to come back before you do.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, his tongue thick and clumsy in his mouth,  
“Okay.”

\--

Chris was waiting for him at the entrance to the crevice. Derek joined him wordlessly, and they made their way down the mountainside without speaking. The moon seemed muted and the stars distant. It was hard to believe anyone saw a reflection of light on a night like this. Maybe there hadn’t been one. It was entirely possible Chris had fabricated the story in order to get Derek out of the mountain, get him out into the open. If Derek was Chris, he probably would have considered a similar course of action. The easiest way to get out of the situation Derek had placed him in would be to remove Derek, as quickly and quietly as possible.

A part of him was ashamed for thinking it. His home was nothing like the Rings. They didn’t murder their own people, not even to secure the safety of the rest. Chris was the living proof of that. Yet another part of him, the part that never forgot Chris was an Argent, compelled him to rest his hand on the gun and keep it there. If Chris noticed, he said nothing about it.

The entered the desert on foot, the wind erasing their footsteps. For a while there was no sound but sand sliding over the ground.

Then Chris spoke up quietly, his voice muted by the bandana,  
“You’ve got the majority. Some of them are packing tonight. Ellen and Allison are already making plans.”

Derek didn’t know what to say. He wondered what the minority was doing. He wondered who would lead them in protest. If Chris was one of them. Would they simply remain behind, or would they try and stop the rest of them from leaving? How were they supposed to divide the supplies for this? Would there be a war over the damn goats?

He was so tired.

“You’ve condemned most of them to death, and they’re going to it willingly,” Chris said, his tone even.  
“It’s a luxury not many get,” Derek said, “being able to choose the way they die.”

He stopped, eyes straining in the darkness. He could have sworn he’d seen it, the flicker, a few hundred yards out. Chris stopped next to him, eyes focused on the same spot. They waited in silence, the wind beating at them.

He wanted to tell Chris that he knew very well what the outcome would be. He knew that most of them would probably die. He knew that chances were small any of them would make it into East. That he wasn’t some brash youth, relying on a fantasy, believing in miracles. He had been once, before Paige died, before the Rings hammered him into something new and hard. He understood the cost of staying, and the cost of leaving. He’d weighed them carefully against each other, for hours, trying to find a third option, the one where no one dies and everyone lives happily ever after. It didn’t exist.

And Chris knew that too. For all the man was, he wasn’t stupid. Derek supposed it was easier this way. Chris could hang each death around Derek’s neck. Chris could escape the responsibility of having supported a decision which would cause so much loss.

The light flickered again and Derek reached for Chris’s shoulder. The man had seen it too. He motioned for Derek to head North and circle towards it, while Chris headed South. Soon Derek lost sight of him in the darkness. It was hard to keep oriented with the stars so weak and the moon faded. A glance back showed that the mountains had disappeared in the night, as if they had never existed.

Some fifty yards out he stopped again. He couldn’t be sure he was heading in the right direction any more. The light didn’t flicker again and the wind had picked up, the sand beating against him with force. He turned carefully, trying to orient himself. If he was right, he should be facing South now, facing Chris somewhere across the darkness. There was nothing to see. Not a flicker of light, no shapes moving through the dust, even the sound muted in the wind.

He considered turning back, and a gun barrel pressed against his neck.  
“Get your hands up,” a muffled voice barked behind him, and Derek felt lightheaded with relief.  
“Lee?”

\--

“Jackson is dead,” was the first thing she said, her face invisible under the scarf.

They could see the mountain now, rearing in front of them. Chris had taken her bike back when it became apparent she was not willing to ride it. It had been piled high with supplies, plus three extra saddle bags Derek wasn’t ready to ask about yet.

“He’s not,” Derek said, “He’s a mess, but he’s alive.”  
Her steps faltered, but only for a moment.  
“They said they killed him.”  
“They left him for dead,” Derek said, “What did you do?”

She stayed silent, and he decided to let it go for now. They made their way in between the rocks, her steps sure and steady. It didn’t look like she was hurt. It struck him again how small she was; without her sharp eyes staring him down, with her face invisible, she barely reached his shoulder. And yet she’d towered over the largest of them so easily, without even trying.

He’d never liked her much. But he’d always respected her.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, “a lot has happened.”  
“Allison?” she said, for the first time her voice betraying something, an emotion she never showed in front of the others.  
“She’s fine.”  
She nodded, quickening her pace, moving ahead of him. He let her.

\--

He assumed that she’d want to see Jackson first, but he was wrong.  
“I want to report,” she said, and Derek didn’t questioned it.

Allison was already waiting with Chris. She stood up quickly, her face pale and her relief obvious. Derek settled across from Chris, ignoring what little there was to see. A brush of fingers, a soft whisper, foreheads pressed together for only a moment before parting. Allison pushing a water bottle into Lee’s hands. A silent conversation made up of quick glances and facial expressions. Then they were both settling in a loose circle with Derek and Chris, and Lee was finally unwinding her scarf.

There was a bruise on her cheek and another around her throat. Now he could see dry blood mixing with the sand on her boots, smeared across her heavy leather gloves, staining her jacket. Her red hair shone in the lamplight, tips bleached blonde by the sun.  
“What happened,” he said, echoing the same question Chris had put to him only days ago.

“They found me after Jackson,” she said, her voice cool.  
“Three of them. Deucalion’s men. They said they’d do the same thing to me they did to him, if I didn’t tell them where my camp was. Who my boss is. One of them liked to talk. He said they’d been sent out to look for a traitor. Gerard had both Kali’s and Deucalion’s men looking for him, combing the desert a mile at a time. They’re thorough. They found two of our supply holds, one of them filled with blood stained clothes and bandages. That’s how they knew they were on the right path. They said-- Gerard had only wanted to punish the traitor, but now he was interested in this mystery settlement in the desert. He’d told his men there was a hidden stash of goods, enough to feed them all for years. If Deucalion’s men were telling the truth, then there are hundreds out there. A war party, all three Rings united, systematically making its way East. And we’re in its way.”

A heavy silence descended on them all. Derek felt cold down to the bone. They would not be leaving the mountain but running from it, with hundreds of enforcers on their heels. There was no way two hundred people heavy with supplies, dozens of children among them, could outrun the combined force of three Rings. They were finished.

“What happened to the three men?” Chris asked.  
“Dead,” she said, “I used Talia’s old technique. Buried the bodies then headed North with one of their bikes. Waiting for a good sized dust storm delayed me by a day.”  
“That was unnecessary,” Chris said, “they’ll find the bodies in their search. It’ll just make them more determined. It’ll confirm their suspicions.”  
“It’s a bit late to worry about their suspicions,” Lee said, “That’s three less men that will attack us here. And they will attack us here. I don’t know how far the war party has progressed; I couldn’t get that out of them. But I’d take a wild guess and say we have a few days here before they reach the mountains.”  
“You could’ve misdirected them, bought us a few days.”  
“Fuck you,” she said, the words all the more startling for being delivered in the same cool tone, “They said they’d killed Jackson. They were going to kill me. I don’t care what you think I should’ve done.”

“That’s enough,” Ali cut in, “she’s tired. I still need to update her on what’s been going on here, and what our plans are. I’m sure you two have preparations to make.”

Only after they’s stepped out of the cave did Ali’s words sink in.  
He looked at Chris out of the corner of his eye,  
“You’re going East too.”  
“I go where Ali goes.”  
“The ones that want to stay. They might want to reconsider that decision now.”  
“I’ll let you be the one to tell them that,” Chris said.

Did he sound smug? Or was Derek just imagining it?

“Make it quick though,” Chris said, his eyes studying the sky, “I’m taking Ethan and Aiden to the truck. The trailers need to be reinforced. Isaac’s lab needs to be moved first, then the food. If we’re gonna be out of here in less than two days, everyone needs to get in gear now.”  
He turned to look at Derek, his eyes cold,  
“That means your boy too.”

Something about his tone of voice made Derek’s fists clench.  
“He hasn’t decided yet. If he’s coming or not.”  
“He needs to decided now.”  
“He’ll decide when he’s fucking ready.”

Chris opened his mouth, then closed it. Instead, his featured rearranged, showing something dangerously close to pity. It made Derek want to punch him. It made him want to pound Chris into a bloody pulp.

Chris looked away,  
“I’ll send Erica for you when we’re ready to start loading.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you have questions, feel free to ask, but I might not always have the answer.
> 
> Even though this installment is finished, it will not be regularly updated. I am in process of working on second series, which might result in some changes to what I've already written, so if you expect a regularly updated WIP, you're going to hate me.
> 
> Good luck to us both, huh?


End file.
